COLLABORATORS
BEIBEI WANG
Beibei Wang is a percussionist and composer based in London whose work spans a diverse range of multi-disciplinary projects. Beibei first worked with Gracefool Collective providing music direction and composition for 2023's Kick Off. Beibei's other work with dance groups includes projects with House of Absolute and the Philharmonia, and Aakash Odedra Company, touring internationally with 'Samsara' following its 2022 UK premiere at Edinburgh International Festival. On the concert stage, she is a frequent performer of contemporary classics and new commissions including solo recitals and chamber appearances with RPS-award winning ensemble Manchester Collective. As a classical soloist, she has performed around the world with leading orchestras worldwide such as BBC Symphony Orchestra, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, and the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, on the world’s most prestigious stages. Over the course of Beibei's long-term collaboration with composer and conductor Tan Dun, she has performed his percussion concertos as soloist worldwide, including the premiere of ‘Earth Concerto’ at Grafenegg Festival.
Beibei brings her cross-cultural background into her original compositions. In 2023, her music theatre piece “WuXing 五行” for chamber ensemble and multimedia premiered at LSO St Luke’s, London. This followed her previous year's premiere of her piece ‘JiuGe’. In winter 2022, Beibei performed her arrangement of Tan Dun’s ‘Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’ concerto for percussion ensemble and cello in Hamburg’s Laeiszhalle, and her commissions include music for Shanghai, London and Paris Fashion Weeks, award-winning short film scores, and multimedia music theatre pieces.
Photo by Mike Skelton
ESTHER M. SIDDIQUiE
Esther M. Siddiquie is an artist working through performance, family archives, writings and technology. Her works have been shared at the New Lab in Brooklyn, IAC, Tanzhaus NRW, German Consulate General in New York, Kunstmuseum Bochum, Dance Umbrella Festival, The Place and Sadler’s Wells. She is a guest artist with Gracef**l Collective, Charlotte Triebus and part of the collectives B.EEF and Always Otherwise. She holds an MFA from NYU Tisch School of the Arts and works as an Artistic Associate at the School of Dance at University of the Arts Philadelphia where she curates the Uarts Love Café conversations a space for future dreamings and actions.
Photo by Nitsan Margaliot
João Maio
João Maio is a contemporary dance artist and creative producer based in Leeds, West Yorkshire. In 2009, he enrolled on the 3-year professional contemporary performer course in Balleteatro Professional School, Porto. Following this, João moved to England to further develop his artistic practice at the Northern School of Contemporary Dance (NSCD), where he graduated with a First Class Honours Degree in 2015.
Whilst training at NSCD, João was invited to work with Carlos Pons Guerra’s DeNada Dance Theatre, playing the soloist role of the Virgin Mary in “O Maria”. Following this, he worked with Rosie Kay Dance Company in several projects (including the 2017 and 2018 U.K. tours of “MK Ultra”); Lizzie J Klotz in “This is a show about lying” and Gracefool Collective, as rehearsal director/tour manager on the tour of “This is not a wedding”. After completing the MA in Dance & Creative Enterprise at NSCD (2018), João began to work as a Creative Producer independently and for Leeds-based community development organisation Open Source Arts. João continues to develop his interest in furthering his understanding of the national artistic ecology and enhancing it, also being the independent board member at Leeds Dance Partnership.
Photo by Aldona Lis
REBECCA HOLMBERG
Rebecca Holmberg is a founding member of Gracefool Collective, co-creating and touring, amongst other works, This Really Is Too Much and This Is Not A Wedding. She completed a year of Swedish folk dance before graduating from NSCD. In 2012 she was involved in a project with Dance United, YorkshireDance and Leeds Youth Offending Service to give young people with no previous dance experience a chance to create and perform.
She has workedwith choreographers such as Danielle Dietz, David Nondorff, Andrea Buckley and Douglas Thorpe. Rebecca taught dance at the Circus in Performance course at Greentop Circus in Sheffield and has worked for ArtFelt, deliveringperformances in hospitals for young people. She co-runs a summer camp in Sweden for young people aged 10-14 where they develop skills in music, dance and theatre through a production at the local community theatre.
SOFIA EDSTRAND
Sofia Edstrand is a founding member of Gracefool Collective, co-creating and touring, amongst other works, This Really Is Too Much and This Is Not A Wedding. She has worked with professional choreographers such as Danielle Dietz, Douglas Thorpe and Simon Birch and for Balbir Singh Dance Company, performing in ‘Synchronised,’ a piece mixing Contemporary Dance, Classical Indian Dance and Synchronised Swimming.
She has also worked with and performed in different children performance with companies such as Freedom Studios, Adept and Dance United. Sofia regularly returns to her home country of Sweden to teach a wide range of dance styles at Kulturskolan Örnsköldsvik and Nolaskolan. Sofia also holds a gold medal from the Swedish Championships in Rhythmical Gymnastics. She has recently undertaken an advanced maths course at Stockholm University.
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FRIENDS & SPONSORS
