Board of Trustees |

Board of Trustees

Chisenhale Dance Space is a registered charity, led by a Board of Trustees.

CDS' board is composed of individuals, who are legally and ethically responsible for the charity. The role of the Board of Trustees is to support the strategic vision and leadership of the company and ensure CDS remains true to its values, relevant to our artistic and local communities, well managed and financially sustainable.

CDS' Trustees work with the Members and Staff to lead the organisation and oversee its management.

The Trustees can be contacted by emailing theboard@chisenhaledancespace.co.uk.

Elaine was born and raised in London to Nigerian immigrants, studied at Central Saint Martins and is an experienced Project Manager, Creative Curator and Youth Mentor/Coach who has worked in a diverse range of industries from Fashion, PR, Finance, Film Festivals and Charities. As an avid traveller who has lived in five continents, she always feels inspired by cultural connections and preserving memories. She is passionate about artistic storytelling that especially brings awareness to displaced narratives to wider audiences; through community led efforts, preservation, representation, and collaboration.

Outside of work and always a student, Elaine went on to study yoga and energy work and is fervent about sharing mindfulness and self-enquiry where individuals, groups or communities can develop and intuitively integrate their own holistic practices.

Steven Brett

Steven currently works for British Council as Theatre and Dance Programme Manager for the Americas, Caribbean, and EU Europe.

Born in Australia in 1965, Steven danced for Nederlands Dans Teatre II under Jiri Kylian and Rambert Dance Company directed by Richard Alston and Christopher Bruce where he also worked as rehearsal director and from 2000 Associate Artistic Director.

In 2004 Steven joined the British Council as a Drama and Dance Projects Manager with responsibilities for Western Europe, Latin America and Southern Africa. In 2008 Steven was appointed Executive Producer of Pacitti Company and SPILL Festival of Performance, for the 2009 edition. From 2010 – 2015 he ran the Nightingale Theatre in Brighton, a small pub theatre, artist development and residency space. He continues to assist choreographer Christopher Bruce, setting his pieces on companies in Europe and the USA.

Clara Giraud (Chair)

Clara is an arts producer, supporting individual artists, organisations and partnerships to enable cultural exchanges and conversations. She is currently working with Mayor of London’s Culture Team on London Borough of Culture. 2014-2019 she was Project Manager at Artsadmin, delivering Unlimited, a commissioning programme for arts by disabled artists, funded in majority by Arts Council England. She has worked closely with performance maker Joseph Mercier, with whom she co-founded company PanicLab, presenting work in the realms of dance, live art and theatre.

Clara engages with work that is political, personal, serious yet with a good dose of humour. She places collaboration, generosity, transparency and change at the heart of everything she does. Clara was chair of the Independent Dance Management Network 2015/16. Currently, she is also on the Advisory Committee of the IETM network.

Janine Harrington

Janine is an artist whose practice includes writing, choreography and public space projects. Her works are mainly for gallery and non-stage spaces prioritising explorations around access, play, agency, confrontation by times/scales and neuroqueer experiences. Janine’s work has been programmed by the following: Wellcome Collection, Fest en Fest, Dance Live Aberdeen, Sånafest Norway, Dance Umbrella, V&A Museums, NottDance, Brighton Festival, Brighton Digital Festival, Tanz in Winterthur, Villa Empain, Warrington Contemporary, Theaterfestival Favoriten Germany, Et20l’été France, EAREYE festival Inkonst, South East Dance.

Janine is a CDS member and supports other artists in production processes including project planning, grant writing and websites.

Gabriela Matic

Gabi is the Programme Director at ATI Boeing Accelerator, a 3-month programme for world-class technology startups building industry 4.0 and sustainability enabling technologies, with the potential to be applied in the UK aerospace industry. Gabi is responsible for designing, recruiting for and running accelerator programmes across the UK mainland. She has founded her own health tech startup before this and uses her experience to help other founders. When she is not working with or thinking about aerospace startups she is a (forever beginner) dance student in the studio and loves what CDS stands for.

Reece is a working-class interdisciplinary arts producer working across theatre, dance, live and outdoor arts. He is the Producer at New Diorama Theatre, the UK’s leading theatre for developing early and mid-career theatre companies and ensembles. Reece also is the Co-creative Director / Producer of The REcreate Agency, a multidisciplinary creative agency that develops the potential in independent artists, producers & projects.

Reece turned to producing after graduating from London Contemporary Dance School and a career in Front of House Management at the Donmar Warehouse. For three years, he was Assistant Producer at The Place working on touring shows on the rural, small & mid-scale. Reece was also one of the producers in the Old Vic 12 2020/21 cohort.

As a producer & project manager, he has worked with organisations including Avant Garde Dance Company, OutdoorArtsUK, Pleasance Theatre, and Museum of Homelessness.

Florin is an experienced fellow chartered accountant, with backgrounds in economics and accounting, with more than ten years of experience across a variety of finance processes / functions, including controlling, budgeting & forecasting, auditing, P&L and balance sheet management, both in larger as well as smaller-sized organisations. His career so far has been shaped by a variety of roles within the finance function, ranging from financial controlling to financial accounting and analysis, both in smaller as well as larger organisations, both in his home country, Romania and abroad, where he had the chance to deal with the entire range of finance, accounting, budgeting, forecasting and, finally, reporting activities, giving him a good all rounded experience.

Alisa Oleva

Alisa Oleva is an artist working in the spaces of the city, exploring urban choreography and urban archaeology, traces and surfaces, borders and inventories, intervals and silences, passages and cracks. Alisa holds a BA and MA from The Courtauld Institute of Art and an MA in Performance from Goldsmiths. Her projects have manifested as a series of interactive situations, performances, movements scores, personal and intimate encounters and situations, parkour, walkshops, and audio walks.

Scarlett Perdereau

Originally from Paris, Scarlett Perdereau is an independent dance artist based in London.

Following early training in ballet and modern dance, she completed an English degree at the Sorbonne University in Paris and an Acting degree at Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in London. She then trained and performed mostly in physical and dance theatre before focusing on contemporary dance.

Since 2003, she has performed internationally in dance, theatre, opera, film, and site-specific and multimedia works, including for Arthur Pita, Fran Barbe, Darren Johnson, Karla Shacklock, Marie-Gabrielle Rotie, Katie Green, Jonathan Burrows and Matteo Fargion, and Tino Sehgal.

Her choreographic works since 2005 have shown at Sadler's Wells, the Riverside Studios, The Place, Cloud Dance Festival and Barcelona's Teatro Mercat de les Flors, among other venues and platforms.

In 2011 Scarlett completed an MA at The Place, London Contemporary Dance School, reflecting on her practice as a performer, choreographer and teacher. In 2014-2015 she received a Dance UK Choreographer To Choreographer Award supporting her observation and conversation with Charlotte Vincent.

Nowadays she focuses on choreographing and on leading dance and movement research, with a particular interest in site-specific and multi-disciplinary collaboration. You'll also find her co-managing Yogahome, a yoga studio nestled in East London.

Chinami has 10 years’ experience of working in museums and galleries, and currently works as Senior Producer for the Informal Learning programme at the V&A Museum of Childhood in Bethnal Green, London. Her practice has focused around the collaboration and co-production between contemporary artists and participants, and she has delivered projects including Juke Box meets Tate Britain (2013) with artist Yuri Suzuki, Our Studio (2016), and Festival of Play (2019) with a number of artists including Albert Potrony, Neil Luck and Matt Shaw. Her recent professional interests concern play theory, learning through play and child development, and outside of work, she is currently studying developmental psychology as a part-time evening student.