EXPLORE 2024
Dance Artists
Independent Dance Artists
Shakeera Ahmun is a freelance dance artist and teacher based in Cardiff, Wales. She is inspired by music and the nuances of melody and rhythm, that drives her physicality and continuously sculpts her movement language. She has also experienced working on theatre and opera productions with Welsh National Opera’s ‘The Shoemaker’ and National Theatre Wales’ ‘Circle of Fifths’, as well as working on her own creative ventures, which has deeply informed her artistic practice.
Shakeera studied at the London Contemporary Dance School and California Institute of the Arts performing in works by Sasha Waltz, Richard Alston and Tony Adigun.
Since graduating, Shakeera has collaborated with some amazing dance and theatre artists such as Krystal Lowe, Matteo Marfoglia, June Campbell Davies and Gavin Porter.
Nia Morgan grew up in Rhondda Cynon Taf, attending a ballet school in the area, where her love for dance developed. Nia began dancing with groups such as Afon Community dance, Ballet Cymru, Advance and Step-Up with NYDW.
Having won a scholarship to Northern ballet school, Nia later began teaching Ballet classes at SL Dance Academy where she was mentored by a Royal Academy of dance examiner. Following this, Nia began a shadowing internship with Afon community dance, and later taught as one of their dance practitioners to the community.
Nia has performed in a variety of productions and shows and is now a freelance dancer/ practitioner and works as a Performing Arts lecture.
Dorka Zatonyi
I was born in Budapest, Hungary, where I discovered my passion for dancing, and later moved to the UK, to complete my full time dance training at Falmouth University. One of the highlights of my time in Cornwall was performing at the iconic outdoor stage of the Minack Theatre. Having completed my training, I then moved my base to Cardiff, where I stepped into the freelance world. I am genuinely interested in the physicality of movement, and devising work that delves into the complexity of human life. I am also passionate about using dance as a way of connection, reaching a wide range of people both within education and performance contexts.
Ransack Dancers
Amber Howells is a dance artist and writer from the heart of Cardiff who brings vibrant energy and a passion for storytelling to her work. Deeply engaged with social and ecological themes, she creates art that explores nature, humanity, and connection, hoping to inspire introspection and conversation in her audiences. Since graduating from the Northern School of Contemporary Dance in 2020, Amber has had the pleasure of working with choreographers including Krystal S. Lowe, Anna Watkins, Marcus Jarrell-Willis, Gwyn Emberton, Rita Marcalo and June Campbell-Davies. Her passion for teaching is most evident through her work with Heels Empowerment and as the Dance Officer for Jones the Dance’s young company, Quiet Beats.
Amber is committed to integrating and championing accessibility and inclusion in the arts and is really thrilled to be joining the Ransack team! Amber joins Ransack Dance Company, this year, participating in Explore 2024 as her first project with the company.
Mike Williams is an Independent Dance Artist originally from Swansea, who now calls the valleys of Maesteg, Bridgend home. Mike has been performing professionally for almost 20 years with a career spanning many company roles from Earthfall, Exim Dance, FFIN DANCE, Joon Dance to working alongside several independent artists. Mike joined Ransack Dance Company in 2017 and was involved in the R&D process, premier project and National Tour of ‘Us and Them’. He has taught a number of community dance classes and projects for the organisation through their partnership with Artis Community, including annual ‘Ransack Your Stories’ summer school and currently teaches ‘Ransack Youth Dance Company’ classes at YMa,Pontypridd.
Mike is also a well-established Yoga Teacher with his own brand of Maya Yoga,Wales UK where he works across South Wales delivering classes and retreats. He is also a qualified teacher having worked in several colleges and schools and has recently qualified as an Ayurvedic Yoga Massage Therapist.
Lucy Jones joined Ransack’s EXPLORE programme in 2018 and then joined the company’s R&D rehearsals in 2021 in a ‘Trainee Company Dancer’ role, before joining the company fully in 2022 for the creation period and premiere of ‘Us and Them’ and National tour of the production in 2023/24.
Alongside her role as Company Dancer for Ransack Dance Company, Lucy is a freelance dance artist living in Treorchy, Rhondda Cynon Taff. She trained at Northern School of Contemporary Dance before joining Emergence – postgraduate company of Joss Arnott and University of Salford. Lucy has danced in choreographic exploration labs with NDCWales (Laboratori), and Phoenix Dance Theatre (Choreographers & Composers Lab), alongside R&D’s for independent dance artists. Most recently, Lucy was commissioned by Make It! and Rhondda Arts Festival to translate her Screen dance ‘Treorchy’ (Creative Cardiff commission 2021) into a live dance duet for indoor and outdoor spaces.
Alex Marshall Parsons is a Cardiff based theatre and film director, performer and editor. Alex joined Ransack Dance Company in 2018 and has co-created and toured two productions with the organisation; ‘Murmur’ and ‘Us and Them’. He also has delivered many workshops and community dance classes and projects with Ransack, including the ‘Ransack Your Stories’ summer school and ‘Ransack Youth Dance Company’ training sessions.
Alongside his work with Ransack, Alex is the Creative Director of Gary & Pel Live Action Cartoon; an outdoor arts company touring nationwide. Previous credits include Earthfall, We Are Bombastic, Gary Clarke Company, and Sweetshop Revolution and he was nominated for best dance artist at the theatre critics awards. Alex has recently created 'AlMarPar'; a physical theatre company creating 'HOUS', a performance advocating the normalisation of LGBT relationships, funded by the Arts Council of Wales.
Liam Wallace is a Cardiff based artist. He trained at Northern School of Contemporary Dance and graduated with a BPA(Hons) in contemporary dance in 2015. Since then Liam has been developing his performance & teaching practice in contemporary dance working on a mixture of different projects across the UK. Working with the Welsh National Opera, Jo Fong, NDCWales and Krystal Lowe has allowed him to develop a style of moving and teaching that promotes openness and individuality within his performance. Liam also is a dance tutor for ‘Dance Blast’ and ‘Jukebox Collective’ and runs ‘Nomah Youth Dance’. Choreographically Liam has worked on a range of art forms including film, music videos and dance work where his focus is to create strong, powerful and emotive work often relating to a dancer's physical strengths and their understanding of the body.
After being introduced to Ransack Dance Company through his previous teaching role with Artis Community and participating in various CPD classes and workshops with the company, Liam undertook his own professional development project, funded by the Arts Council of Wales, involving shadowing company rehearsals and taking mentoring sessions with Artistic Director, Sarah Rogers. This year, he joins Ransack as a Company Dancer - taking part in Explore 2024 as his first project as a member of the company.
Angharad Jones - Young joins Ransack Dance Company this year, as a ‘Trainee Company Dancer’, participating in Explore 2024 as her first project with the company.
Angharad is a Welsh freelance dancer and teacher. She grew up in Snowdonia, North Wales, before moving to Leeds to study at the Northern School of Contemporary Dance, graduating in 2021 with a First-Class Honours degree. She then joined National Dance Company Wales as an apprentice dancer for their 2021-22 season, touring works by Andrea Costanzo-Martini, Anthony Matsena and Caroline Finn. Following this, Angharad became a company dancer with ACE dance and music - a contemporary/afro-fusion company based in Birmingham. There, she toured nationally and internationally, performing works by Vincent Mantsoe, Gail Parmel and Serge Coulibaly. Most recently she has worked with Keneish Dance, for a tour of ‘Balance’ - an educational family dance show.
Alongside performing, Angharad also has a strong passion for teaching and has taught at many organisations including Elmhurst Ballet School, DanceFest, Dance United Yorkshire and Grace and Poise Academy.
Caldonia Walton joins the Explore project as Rehearsal Director for Ransack Dance Company – leading company classes and supporting the creative process during the open research and development rehearsal week.
Caldonia trained professionally in contemporary dance, graduating with a First Class BA Honours degree from London Studio Centre in 2014 where she was part of Intoto Dance. Caldonia has performed as Fifi in VOXED's Out Late production (BBC Arts & UK Tour), Emily in A Posi+ive Life by Autin Dance Theatre, Elizabeth in Frankenstein (Cascade Dance Theatre, National Welsh Tour) and has been a company member of Ransack Dance Company (Wales) since 2018. Caldonia has also worked with artists such as Tim Casson, Douglas Thorpe (Mad Dogs Dance Theatre), Zamira Kate Mummery (ZK Dance), Dam Van Huynh, Cirque Bijou, Edd Mitton, Hannah Vincent, Lizzie J Klotz and Willi Dorner. She has received Arts Council England funding to create touring dance theatre stage production Weight/Wait and 40-min film ALEX. She has worked as a choreographer and movement director on plays and musicals such as Sweeney Todd, Parade, Frankenstein, The Quentin Dentin Show, Summer Nights in Space and most recently as Associate Movement Director for the National Theatre and Headlong production of ‘People Places and Things’. She has also recently completed an MA in Creative Practice with Laban & Independent Dance.
Artis Community Practitioners
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Abril Trias is a community artist based in South Wales, with a multidisciplinary background in film, dance movement and sustainable arts. She is passionate about creating inclusive experiences with the arts, and has a range of experience working with children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities and delivering community art and dance workshops with Artis Community.
Abi has worked as a dance assistant for Artis Community's ‘IncluDance’ youth dance classes and ‘True Colours’ sessions in day centres.
Charlotte Perkins. Following getting to know Artis Community and Ransack through participating in our previous Explore project in 2019, Charlotte is now a freelance dance tutor for Artis Community. Charlotte delivers sessions on their dance program such as ‘Movers’ and ‘Boppers’ classes, ‘True Colours Dance Theatre’ sessions for disabled adults in day centres and their ‘Creative Learning Body Project’ primary school sessions.
Charlotte graduated from the University of South Wales with a First Class BA(Hons) in Dance in 2019, before completing her Masters in Dance Performance at the University of Chichester in 2020/2021. During this year, she was a member of the postgraduate touring company mapdance, and performed works by Yael Flexer, Robert Clark, Ceyda Tanc and Joseph Toonga. Charlotte then went on to work as a freelance dance artist for a number of choreographers and organisations and received professional development, mentoring and support to create a digital work in progress, which explored the relationship between audio description and movement for screen.
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Sue Lewis has worked with Artis Community for the past 8yrs. Previously she taught in a special school for pupils aged 3yrs to 19yrs, specialising in drama, dance and physical education.
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Sue's role with Artis is to deliver creative dance sessions in four different day centres throughout RCT.
“Our adult dancers, who have learning disabilities enjoy exploring movement while using music, props and various themes as a stimulus. Our sessions are relaxed, fun and friendly, creating an atmosphere where our participants can explore movement with confidence and enjoyment, this is always evident in every lesson.”
Programme Leaders
Linzi Rumph
Development Officer
Artis Community
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Linzi is the Development Officer for Artis Community. she coordinates a range of arts programmes, as well as delivering weekly and project-based workshops and leads on the community practice training sessions involved in the EXPLORE project.
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Linzi identifies and develops growth opportunities for Artis Community, whilst maintaining and growing participation through the arts programmes. Linzi has a high level of experience in Health and Wellbeing, with developments in Dance for Parkinsons. She has a BA (hons) Degree in Dance, a Post Compulsory PGCE, and has attended various CPD courses related to Dance and Dementia, Movement Therapy, Inclusive Practice and Dance for Older People. Linzi has been working as part of Artis Community since 2010 and has gradually built on her professional career as a community dance practitioner.
The most rewarding part of her job is "working with such a vast range of people, creating positive relationships, watching the change it can provoke in someone’s life and more importantly, seeing them smile".
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Sarah Rogers
Artistic Director,
Ransack Dance Company
Beth Hopkins photography
Becca Head Photography
Sarah is the founder of Ransack Dance Company and is Artistic Director of the organisation. She helps to manage the Explore project and leads on the production training elements of the project. - working as choreographer in the rehearsal space for the open R&D week. She directs the team of dancers, musicians and film artists to choreograph professional production work, alongside designing and delivering on the company’s professional development training programmes, community dance projects and audience development projects. She designed and set up the ‘Gyda’n Gilydd’ Dance Programme in partnership with Artis Community over a number of annual development projects, which include the ‘EXPLORE’ training programme, running alongside a series of community dance based projects.
To date, she has led the company to create two full length professional double bill productions; ‘Murmur’, which toured Wales in 2019 and ‘Us and Them’ which premiered in 2022 and toured Nationally in 2023/24. Alongside her creative role Sarah also leads the strategic business development of the organisation and manages the company on a day to day basis.
Prior to setting up Ransack, Sarah trained at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, graduating with a BA (Hons) degree in Dance Theatre, before completing an apprenticeship with Earthfall Dance Company. Throughout her training and professional career Sarah has performed for Rosemary Butcher, Charles Linehan, Kerry Nicholls, Darren Johnston, Will Dorner, Tamsin Fitzgerald (2Faced Dance) and The Configur8 Project, and presented work at Resolution festival as an independent choreographer. Alongside her professional directing and performance work Sarah is an experienced community dance practitioner and educator and has directed a number of youth groups and community dance projects. Previously she has been Education Manager at 2Faced Dance Company, and a Dance Ambassador for National Dance Company Wales. She has also taught as an independent practitioner on Artis Community’s ‘Creative Learning Body’ dance in education programme and has delivered a number of ‘Creative Lead Schools’ dance projects in various schools across South Wales. She also currently teaches a range of community classes for ‘Dance Blast’, Abergavenny including directing their inclusive adult dance company ‘MCDC’.
