Natasha Gilmore
Natasha is Artistic Director and founder of Barrowland Ballet. Born in London, Natasha’s early training was as a junior associate of The Royal Ballet School at Sadler’s Wells, then Bush Davies School of Theatre Arts and at Laban. An internationally respected choreographer for dance theatre and film, Natasha’s work has toured to five continents. In 2017, Natasha Gilmore was the UK nomination for the ASSITEJ Award for Excellence for her work for young audiences including Little Red (7+), Whiteout (12+) Tiger Tale (7+) and Poggle (6 months – 4 years). Natasha is passionate about creating intergenerational, large-scale participation performances; her recent work Wolves (2017) incorporated a 60 strong intergenerational cast aged between 4 and 85 years old. In 2016 Natasha established an intergenerational company, Wolf Pack, which subsequently won the Most Innovative Project at the 2019 ‘Generations Working Together’ National awards. Most recently Natasha has been recognised for her developing practice in contemporary dance work with and for neuro-diverse audiences. As a dancer, Natasha has worked with Rose’s Thoughts, Protein Dance, and Jasmin Vardimon, before moving to Glasgow to be the Artist in Residence at Dance House. Natasha also frequently works as a choreographer within theatre productions and recent work includes the National Theatre of Scotland’s musical, Glasgow Girls and Andy Cannon’s Tales of a Grandson.
Louise Katerega (FACILITATOR)
Louise has been a versatile contributor to the UK dance scene for almost two decades. She is especially acknowledged for her national and international development work in dance by, for and with disabled people. Based in Leicester, she has enjoyed a broad portfolio career as a performer, teacher, choreographer and – now parenthood is in progress – increasingly, a mentor, dramaturg, diversity thought leader and creative producer.
Louise trained at London Contemporary Dance School, Coventry University (Performing Arts) holds a first class degree in Film and Literature from the University of Warwick and trained as a life coach. She is an occasional speaker and writer about dance, has served and currently serves as a board member for several local and national dance organisations. She has run her own ground-breaking company Foot In Hand since 2003, in 2007 was nominated for Leicester Chamber of Commerce Woman of the Year, contributed to local and national performance events of the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic games and is People Dancing’s Associate Artist 2018-22. Louise is one of six Associate Artists (including Cecilia McFarlane, Protein Dance and English National Ballet) of People Dancing, the foundation for community dance. This role will last from 2018-22 is based around partnership working on, Voice & Presence, writings, research and active brokering of relationships designed to acknowledge amplify and celebrate the contribution of women of the African Diaspora to participatory dance.
Louise was a TYA UK Quality of Difference bursary recipient to Assitej Cape Town in 2017 and participated in drafting TYA’s Diversity Manifesto.