Lucy Bennett

(She/They)

Co-Artistic Director

Lucy Bennett

Immersed in Stopgap’s work since 2003, Lucy has learnt to blend and expand the dynamic interaction of distinctly different dancers. Working as a choreographer within a company of markedly diverse dancers has allowed Lucy to develop, define and encapsulate her love for expressing human stories through dance. 

Lucy originally trained in Dance and Musical Theatre at Bird College. After a year of pantomime, cabaret and failing to get anywhere near a contemporary dance audition, choreographer Maxine Doyle (Punchdrunk and a visiting lecturer at Birds) invited Lucy to audition for Stopgap Dance Company. 

After nearly a decade of dancing with the company Lucy became the Artistic Director of Stopgap in 2012. Lucy has since collaborated with the artistic team to create several original dance theatre productions for national and international touring including Tracking, SPUN Productions, Artificial Things, Bill & Bobby, The Seafarers, The Enormous Room, The Road and FROCK.  

Lucy’s first stage production Artificial Things is currently one of the six dance works to be studied at GCSE level. In 2017 Artificial Things was reimagined by Lucy and film director Sophie Fiennes as a dance film and won ‘Best Screen Choreography’ at DanceScreen in 2019. Artificial Things the film was included in The Guardian as one of five best dance works of 2020, click here to read

Lucy, alongside Stopgap colleagues, has developed Stopgap’s creative learning programme and has supported Stopgap to become world renowned for their inclusive choreographic and teaching practice leading residencies throughout the UK, Asia, Europe, and Scandinavia. In 2014 Lucy devised IRIS with the creative learning team – Stopgap’s Inclusive Dance Syllabus for young people. In 2019 Lucy established with Laura Jones Stopgap’s inclusive dance teacher training course Seedbed and in 2020 collaborated with Thomas Goodwin and Amy Butler to offer Stopgap’s homegrown inclusive dance classes online through Home Practice.  

Currently Lucy is facilitating Stopgap’s ‘Dance Tapes’, an album of Audio Choreography created by disabled dancers from around the world.

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