Mentorship Programme
A year-long programme of mentoring for choreographers and dance makers.
Applications for the Mentorship Programme for 2025-2026 have now closed
We have selected established choreographers from Sadler’s Wells’ network as mentors that we will pair with developing choreographers or dance makers as mentees. Mentees will receive six bi-monthly one-hour mentoring sessions online over the period of a year.
Mentees will be selected by open call where they will share a specific creative question, idea, or provocation that they would like to explore with a mentor.
The mentors that are confirmed for the programme are:
Akeim Toussaint Buck
Alesandra Seutin
Dannielle ‘Rhimes’ Lecointe
Georgia Tegou
Marc Brew
Oona Doherty
Takeshi Matsumoto
Trajal Harrel
Find out more about this programme in the Information Pack below:
Listen to an audio version of the information pack
Read a large-print plain text version of the information pack
Find out more about the mentors:
Akeim Toussaint Buck / Toussaint To Move
Toussaint To Move was established in 2015, founded by artistic director, Akeim Toussaint Buck. Akeim is an interdisciplinary performer and maker, born in Jamaica and raised in England. Toussaint To Move’s intention is to create moving, thought provoking, accessible and free-spirited projects. Exploring a variety of themes that challenge, enlighten, and entertain audiences in a visceral way by calling on multiple art forms to weave a spectacle.
Akeim’s movement interest has a myriad of inspirations that include Capoeira, Martial Arts, Contemporary Dance, Contact Improvisation, Caribbean Dance, Hip Hop and Yoga. His performance focus expands from the physical to vocal expression. Building on an interest in the voice’s expressive qualities, with current explorations of beatboxing and vocal improvisation in the form of the Beatmotion Practice. With a focus on rhythm, flow, melody of lyrical delivery and musical capabilities in the voice.
Alesandra Seutin
Alesandra Seutin is an award-winning multidisciplinary performance artist and creator, whose focus is exploring movement as a foundation for theatre, media and site-specific works. The daughter of South African and Belgian parents, Alesandra was born in Harare, Zimbabwe.
An inspirational leader with a multifaceted career spanning two decades, she has reached global audiences through her work as an artistic director, choreographer, performer, mentor, teacher, movement director, dramaturg and writer for performance and music.
She founded her company Alesandra Seutin (formerly Vocab Dance) in 2007 and has steadily built its reputation for creating high-quality, artistic performance. Renowned for their distinctively theatrical choreography and blend of movement vocabulary, text and dance, the Company’s work is focused on the exploration of subjects which impact our society, and with this capture their audience in a journey of compelling and outspoken dance theatre. Alesandra Seutin’s repertoire is diverse with over eleven productions within its catalogue, ranging from solos to ensemble pieces for indoor stages and site specific settings.
Dannielle ‘Rhimes’ Lecointe
Dannielle ‘Rhimes’ Lecointe is an Award-winning Choreographer, Creative Director, Dramaturg and currently Associate Artistic Director of Zoonation: The Kate Prince Company. With 2 decades under her belt across film, television, stages and events. Dannielle was an assistant choreographer on So You Think You Can Dance (BBC) and later took all female dance company Boadicea into the finals of Got to Dance (Sky One).
As Artistic Director of Zoonation Youth Company Birmingham, Dannielle Directed ‘Groove on down the Road’ at Wolverhampton Arena Theatre, Birmingham Hippodrome and Southampton Mayflower theatre.
Dannielle was a mentor and Judge on BBC Young Dancer. Dannielle’s work as Creative Director saw her curate the opening of The East Bank: Olympic Park and curating ITV’s NYE Bash. Dannielle Business Coaching has led her to help launch and scale 100s Creative Female Entrepreneurs, train mindset to thousands of creatives and build her community The Elevation Nation.
Georgia Tegou
Choreographer and stage director, Georgia Tegou’s work approaches ‘Dance-as-design’, intertwining choreography with design to create immersive visual environments. Drawing inspiration from architecture, sculpture, visual arts, science and philosophy, she explores the symbiotic relationship between dance and spatial arts, seeking to encapsulate nuances of the human condition. Her work has been presented by Dance Umbrella, Sadler’s Wells, Royal Opera House, Venice Biennale of Architecture, Onassis Stegi, Greek National Opera, The Place, ZfinMalta National Dance Company among others. She is a Higher Education Academy Fellow, previously a Senior Lecturer at the University of Roehampton, and continues to guest lecture globally. She is artist in residence at Somerset House Exchange, a programme supporting extraordinary interdisciplinary practitioners and one of RESIDENT 6 artists at Studio Wayne McGregor pushing boundaries of dance, movement and physical Intelligence.
Marc Brew
Acclaimed International disabled choreographer Marc Brew trained as a professional dancer at the Victorian College of the Arts Secondary School and The Australian Ballet School. He has been working Internationally for over 25 years as a director, choreographer, dancer, teacher and speaker. Marc was Associate Director with Scottish Dance Theatre, Associate Artistic Director with Ballet Cymru in Wales, Associate Artist at Tramway Theatre in Scotland and Artistic Director of AXIS Dance Company 2017-2021.
Oona Doherty
Doherty’s distinctive and visceral choreography has sparked international attention, earning multiple awards, amazing reviews and prestigious artistic opportunities both in Ireland, Europe and worldwide. She creates intense, compelling works that appeal for societal change. She has forged a wide range of artistic relationships locally and internationally.
Doherty created her first solo work Hope Hunt and the Ascension into Lazarus in 2016. With this performance, she was awarded the “Tiger Dublin Fringe Festival Best Performer Award” in 2016 and the winner of the “Total Theatre Dance Award” at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2017 and the 1st Audience place and judge’s 1st place at Reconnaissance in Grenoble in 2017, which was voted “No. 1 British dance performance of 2019” by the Guardian.
Takeshi Matsumoto
Takeshi Matsumoto is a dance artist specializing in making dance performances for young audiences. He is also a qualified dance movement psychotherapist, having experience in working with children with autism and learning disabilities both in the UK and Japan. Growing up in Japan, his practice both in life and performing art is influenced by 和-Wa, harmony, peacefulness, quiet and contentment ways of living and balancing with others and environment.
He continues to explore possibilities of dance and performance as a way of acknowledging differences and creating mutual understanding with particular emphasis on empathy, communication, empowerment and body mind integration.
Trajal Harrel
Trajal Harrell gained international recognition for creating a series of works that bring together the tradition of voguing with early postmodern dance. He is considered to be one of the most important choreographers working in contemporary dance today.
In his latest work, the artist also combines theoretical and formal ideas from butoh dance, and early modern dance. Weaving the links between different dance histories, the artist puts the body at the centre of his research exploring the ways in which it becomes a receptacle of memory, speculation, the past, presence, and historical figures who have inspired this work. Intertwining notions of time, the historical imagination, and transcultural references, it reveals the multitude of layers that make up the richness of the histories of art and contemporary dance.
His work is presented internationally in theaters, museums, festivals and galleries. In 2023 Harrell was invited to create a work for the prestigious Cour d’honneur for the 77th edition of Festival d’Avignon. Later that year, Festival d’Automne in Paris dedicated a portrait to Harrell, presenting nine of his works in Paris. In 2024 Harrell was awarded the Silver Lion of The Venice Biennale of Dance. In 2025, he was the artist associate of Holland Festival holding the centerpiece projects of the festival. Currently he is founder and artistic director of Zurich Dance Ensemble.
Read more about the Artist Development Programme at Sadler’s Wells.