Laboratori

Caroline Bowditch
Mentor

After 16 years living and working in the UK, Caroline returned to Australia in July 2018 to take up the role as Chief Executive Officer at Arts Access Victoria. She is best known as a performer, maker, teacher, speaker and mosquito buzzing in the ears of the arts industry in the UK and further afield. Caroline is a regular consultant on access and inclusion internationally, and has also led international residencies in Sweden, Italy, Switzerland and Germany. She is regularly invited to mentor local, national and international artists at all levels of their artistic development. 

During the Laboratori Caroline worked with each of the choreographers to uncover the choreographic stories that each individual feels they want to share. She’s interested in exploring what each choreography has come curious about, what authentic dances do they bring and what each individual wants to interrogate, question and delve into. There will also be the opportunity to think about embedding access as part of the creative process. 

Joshua Attwood
Choreographer

As a queer artist Joshua’s choreographic enquiries interrogate the aesthetic of refusal and the politics of reinvention and reclamation. His movement practice is informed by the tensions and interplay between virtuosity and insistent passivity. With his work he likes to create a sense of lawless spaces, a place ungoverned, temporarily occupied by the bodies that pass through. Joshua’s career has situated him as a performer first and choreographer after, but always finds himself swiftly back on a choreographic pursuit. He has presented work at Nottingham Contemporary, The Place Theatre and Sadler’s Wells Lilian Baylis Theatre. 

Billy Maxwell-Taylor
Choregrapher

Billy is an interdisciplinary movement practitioner who hopes to encourage those who engage with his art to find slowness and space to listen to the world around them. Working as an artistic director, movement director and performer has allowed Billy to work with companies such as Divadlo Continuo, Frantic Assembly and Motionhouse and has allowed him to create his own work through Now & Then Theatre and Yos Theatre. Having completed his degree in European Theatre Arts at Rose Bruford College, he is excited to create explorative, sensory work that inspires curiosity. Outside of theatre, Billy enjoys baking, photography and brewing good coffee.   

Tayla Smith
Choreographer

Tayla Smith has been in Wales 23 years and has been dancing for 20 of those years. Tayla comes from a mixed cultural background of Welsh and Black Caribbean which has helped shape her artistry from a young age.  Tayla is a multi - disciplinary artist that enjoys working with problems and stories that need light shed on them. Through creative forms and techniques, Tayla hopes to bring awareness to people about these situations whilst challenging their minds to develop their own thoughts on the topics of the pieces. 

Faye Tan
Choreographer

Faye is a dance artist at NDCWales and has most recently choreographed 'Moving is everywhere, forever' for the company's Open Air Performance which toured Wales this summer. An indoor iteration of the piece will also be part of the HERE tour this autumn. 

She has worked as a dancer and choreographer in Singapore and in the UK. Her choreographic work currently explores the embodiment and expression of catharsis through connecting one's inner world to the infinite outer world. 

Natasha Dawkes
Dancer

Natasha Dawkes is a new emerging dance artist, currently based in Cardiff. Her practice explores improvisation methods and contemporary dance techniques. After graduating from Falmouth University with a First-Class degree in Dance & Choreography, she has gone on to create screen dance films for collaborations and art festivals, one of which was recently shown in Pontio, North Wales. She is passionate about movement and play with improvisation, as well as collaborating with a wide range of artists across all art disciplines including fine art and poetry. Laboratori is an exciting chance to develop her practice and collaborate with other artists. 

Lucy Jones
Dancer

Lucy Jones is a freelance dance artist living in Rhondda Cynon Taf. 

Lucy trained at Northern School of Contemporary Dance and was part of the inaugural cohort of Emergence – postgraduate company of Joss Arnott and University of Salford. Prior to this Lucy studied at Rubicon Dance, was a member of NDCWales Associates, and National Youth Dance Wales under artistic direction of Kerry Nicholls, and Errol White.  

Since graduating Lucy has taken part in the Choreographers and Composers Lab with Phoenix Dance Theatre and the first year of Laboratori with NDCWales. Lucy performed solo at Cardiff Dance Festival scratch night, which was also performed at multiple scratch nights across the UK. Lucy was a dancer for Ransack Dance Company’s EXPLORE research and development programme, both in the studio in 2018 and online in 2021.