Lîla Board
Our Board gives us vital support to help us achieve our vision.
Board members volunteer their time and expertise to Lîla Dance to steer and advise on our work.
Suzie Birchwood - Chair of the Board
Suzie is a dancer and choreographer. She is also the Artistic Director of Arc dance, which integrates dancers with different physical and learning abilities, celebrating each of its dancers’ unique physiologies.
Suzie has Dystonia and is a wheelchair user. Trained in ballet and contemporary, at 16 Suzie won a full scholarship to train in dance at the London Studio Centre. At 17 she was diagnosed with the neurological condition Dystonia which left her a wheelchair user. 17 years on she both choreographs and performs with Arc Dance as well as designing its extensive outreach work.
Suzie is also a company member of Wolfgang Stange’s world-renowned integrated dance company Amici Dance Theatre Company.
Ash Biagent
Ash is a qualified accountant and tax adviser working at the Rowlands Webster practice in Westbourne where he has gained over 10 years' experience. In his spare time he enjoys the outdoors with hobbies.
Rob Daniels
Rob’s main interests are devised theatre, installations, and (“DIY”) collaborative participation projects. His recent projects for Bootworks include Tiny Live Art, the DIY books, We Could Be Heroes, and The Black Box project.
Robert is a founder of Bootworks, and manages the formal (business) aspects of the company, technical matters, and sometimes works on design and construction. Robert mentors a number of graduate artists and creatives.
Originally from North London, Rob was educated at Northampton University and The University of Kent. His first work, Playing with MySelf in 2003 and scorezer0, its sequel, was funded by ACE and supported by RALP funded Choreographic Lab.
Other work includes collaborations with Jane Bacon on two entries for the Video Place’s One Minute Wander dance video competition (winners 2000), premiered at Cinemarket 2001 by the Danish film institute and Bodyworks 2001 festival in Melbourne, and various work and training with a number of artists, including Sally Dean, Trestle, New Art Club, Nicolas Nunez, The New World Performance Laboratory, Goat Island, Xavier Le Roy, and V-Tol dance.
He is a Senior Lecturer in Theatre at the University of Chichester, and coordinator for their MA Performance programmes.
Sarah Golding
Sarah trained at Trinity Laban and received a BA and MA in dance performance (Transitions Dance Company). Once graduated she became a dancer with Lîla Dance in 2014 where she toured nationally and rurally. She has performed for theatre companies and choreographers including the Royal Court (The Internet Is Serious Business), Bang Bang Bang group, Darcy Wallace, Quang Kien Van, Cathy Waller, Adam Russell. She can be seen in music video’s; Hope Tala’s ‘Cherries’, Anteros ‘Bonnie’ and Anushqa ‘Something In Common’. Sarah has most recently performed in the West End and with the world touring cast of STOMP.
Sarah's contemporary choreographic credits include Balletboyz (the intro.) which is currently featuring in their upcoming Deluxe tour. Phoenix Dance Theatre (Kalena) mapdance 21 (STATE), ‘Blood and Belif’(U.Mi-1 London Fashion week 21), TRANSIT-20(Dance film dance film collaboration with South African dancers) Trinity Laban (conversations with x).
Sarah was recently nominated for a British Black Theatre Award for her movement direction for the West End’s Olivier nominated ‘Cruise’ in May 21 (Duchess Theatre). Her theatre choreographic credits also include 'Little Women' (Park Theatre), 'Candide' (Mountview), ’Primetime’ (Royal Court). Sarah will be choreographing the upcoming workshop and production of the new adaptation of ‘Jekyll and Hyde’ (produced by Lambert&Jackson)
Sarah regularly choreographs for various CAT programmes including DanceEast, Trinity Laban and The Place. She also teaches her dynamic and rhythmical class to professionals and companies including Stopgap, NDC Wales, Lila Dance and Balletboyz. She also teaches at various universities and colleges including London Studio Centre, Laban, Belgrade Dance Institute and is a resident choreographer at Miskin Theatre.
Charlotte Mackie
Charlotte Mackie is an Arts Manager and Producer working predominantly in dance.
She is currently General Manager for Stopgap Dance Company and Project Manager for Dance Hub Birmingham.
She has also recently worked on projects with Made by Katie Green (Local Producer for ‘The Imagination Museum’), Stuart Waters (Project Manager for ‘Rockbottom’ tour) and Arts Derbyshire (Project Coordinator).
She was previously full-time Producer for Nuffield Southampton Theatres working on all of their in-house shows, including 'Billionaire Boy the Musical' which won 'Best Show for Children and Young People' at the UK Theatre Awards 2019.
Prior to that she was Stopgap Dance Company's Producer for Outdoor and Community Productions where she worked on national and international tours of outdoor works, including 'Bill & Bobby' and 'The Awakening', and productions that brought together community groups with professional dancers, including 'Moon Language' with the Lights, Andover and 'The Seafarers' with Norfolk & Norwich Festival.
Photo credit: Chris Parkes Photography
Ellie Russell
Ellie studied Psychology at the University of Sussex (BSC) and has a PGCE (Primary) from the University of Southampton. She started her career at Channel Five in Airtime Management, before moving into marketing and communications with various roles across London, going onto specialise in arts-marketing for theatres and outdoor events. She has worked closely with Lila Dance whilst in her role as Marketing Manager at The Point, Eastleigh.
Ellie has recently joined the Events & Experiences team at The Grange Hampshire, using her interest in audience development, and working with artists and communities, to deliver exceptional experiences across the estate.
Jane White
As Course Leader for the BA (Hons) Dance degree at Arts University Bournemouth, I am relishing the opportunity of making a degree course that is attempting to shake up the national dance landscape. The aim to train and produce industry aware portfolio dance artists is a big task. Many creative and academic conversations need to be had at the same time, to make sure that as a course and an institution we are at the forefront of implementing any change. This is a huge task and at a basic level is about HE progression. However my interests as an experienced dance educator in the FE sector are also allowing me to look at the dance provision in schools and colleges with the aim of supporting the art form as a whole, regarding what qualifications are on offer as well as considering whether they are relevant and achievable for Level 2 and 3 implementation.
Alongside that focus, another area of personal interest is in the area of functional fitness and the consideration of whether dancers are artists or athletes. There is scope to work more around this idea with colleagues at Bournemouth University, within the Sports Therapy degree programme.
With over 20 years of educational experience behind her, Jane has lead courses in A Level, BTEC and Foundation Degree Dance as well as at BA Level. She was an External Verifier for Edxecel, assessing dance provision in FE colleges for a number of years and is now an external examiner for the University of West London, specifically supporting Creative Academy, Slough and their FDA and BA Dance pathways.
Throughout her career, she has run numerous youth dance initiatives and was Artistic Director of Whitewash Male Dance Company between 2008 and 2015. Through her teaching career, she has forged lasting links with schools and colleges and is now an advocate for the values of an all round accessible dance curriculum in education. She regularly works across a range of platforms for widening participation and developing new initiatives with teachers, producers and artists as well as connecting in AUB Dance graduates to relevant industry work. She is passionate about the role of Arts University Bournemouth as a civic University, linking current and graduate dance artists into the local community.
Her interest around dance as both an art form and a sport has pushed her to explore new collaborations and ways of rethinking dance practice. Her current area of personal development and research is around the benefits of movement for wellbeing and physical and mental health benefits. She is very interested in the cross training possibilities for a moving body and is a qualified Pilates Instructor and Biomechanics Coach as well a qualified Movement in Practice Facilitator with renowned dance psychologist, Dr Peter Lovatt.