Dance artist
Jemima Hoadley is an independent dance artist based in London. She is a dance maker, teacher and performer with 20+ years of professional experience. Jemima enjoys collaborating with other artists to create work and lead projects across the UK and internationally.
Jemima was an Associate Artist 2013-2020 with Candoco Dance Company, a company of disabled and non-disabled dancers, founded in 1991. Jemima first danced with Candoco in 1999 and rejoined the company in 2013 as a youth dance leader. Since then she has choreographed, performed and led projects for Candoco in UK, Italy, Germany and South Caucuses.
Jemima is a registered British Sign Language/English Interpreter (registered with NRCPD), working in a variety of settings including community, business, engineering, social care, fashion, conference, education and theatre. Candoco supported Jemima in her interpreter training with a vision of fostering in-house experience and expertise in Deaf access.
Jemima Hoadley
Movement Directing/Choreography
Jemima has created and co-created many dance performance projects as a freelancer and with Candoco Dance Company.
In 2017-2019 Jemima was invited to join Metal Culture’s Change Maker Lab, culminating in a day of protest and performance at The Space In Between, Unlimited Festival, London in 2018.
During the Metal Lab she worked with her teenage son Nathan. Their research explores the otherness of Jemima’s role as a parent / carer and her son Nathan, who has Down’s syndrome, Type 1 Diabetes and an obsession with Romeo & Juliet. They were awarded a residency with Metal Culture and support from Independent Dance London to continue to develop their work together and have since performed their work ‘He (and me)’ at Sophiensaele, Berlin, 2019.
Between 2014-2018 Jemima was director of Highfliers Training Company in association with Magpie Dance. Highfliers was a training company for gifted dancers with learning disabilities.
Highfliers performed and toured ‘There Were Definitely Swans’ choreographed by Ben Duke of Lostdog Dance in London and across the UK.
Jemima’s long term interest in Deaf culture and British Sign Language (BSL) led her to pursue training as a BSL interpreter. She trained with Signworld BSL, Bristol, qualifying in October 2022. She is registered with NRCPD.
Jemima has been invited to utilise her sign language skills to work as a performer for several companies including Candoco Dance Company on their award winning dance film Unspoken/Spoken choreographed by Fin Walker in 2018, with BSL performance directed by Deepa Shastri.
Jemima has performed in this capacity with Moxie Brawl on several of their productions, including History of Ireland and What if Everyday was a Thursday. Also with Holly Noble Dance on SNOW
Deaf Access coordination and consultancy
In 2017, Deaf actress, presenter and access consultant Deepa Shastri and Jemima began a collaboration offering consultancy for dance companies interested in making their works accessible to deaf audiences. Productions they have worked on together include 2Faced Dance’s outdoor family show Moon https://www.2faceddance.co.uk/moon and Neon Dance’s installation work Puzzle Creature.
Jemima Hoadley
Project Lead/Teaching
Jemima facilitates dance training and projects in a variety of community and professional settings. She leads many projects for Candoco Dance Company in UK and abroad since 2013, including the youth programme. It was Jemima's work with Candoco's youth programme that made her discover a love for teaching and in 2014 she became director of Highfliers, a dance training company for dancers with learning disabilities. Highfliers was a pilot training programme and company enabling a group of gifted dancers with learning disabilities to access high level training and performance opportunities. The company toured works made in partnership with Ben Duke and Stopgap Dance.
Jemima is a qualified Pilates teacher since 2005 and enjoys teaching in the community.
In 2019 Jemima began a collaboration with ALSO Festival, teaching movement and dance and leading stretch sessions at their live and digital festivals, including ALSO 2020, the UK's first Covid compliant festival and the largest legal UK gathering in 2020.
