Join Stopgap Dance Company for an engaging, hands-on workshop that blends practice and presentation, offering a deep dive into their unique approach to creative access in dance. Through the lens of their award-winning production Lived Fiction, you’ll discover how accessibility and artistry can intertwine to shape powerful, inclusive performances.
What you’ll gain:
Meet like-minded artists in an inclusive space where creativity, access, and expression converge, and explore making dance and performance a more equitable and enriching experience for all.
Stopgap Dance Company is driven by a diverse creative team who uses dance as a movement for change.
Their mission is to create an inclusive world where diversity is not just accepted but pursued, a world where no one is limited by prejudice against Deaf, Disabled, or neurodivergent people.
Lucy Bennett (she/they) is a Co-Artistic Director of Stopgap Dance Company and has been creating acclaimed dance works for the company since 2003.
She is passionate about creating works that express human stories through dance, blending and amplifying the dynamic interactions among the company’s diverse group of dancers.
Together with Stopgap’s Deaf, Disabled, non-disabled and neurodivergent creatives, conceived and choreographed Lived Fiction (2024), which was nominated in The Guardian’s best dance of 2024 and received a One Dance UK award for innovation in dance (2025).
Alongside her choreography, Lucy played a key role in developing Stopgap’s artist development programme and shaped Stopgap to become world-renowned for their inclusive choreographic and teaching practice, leading residencies throughout Europe and Asia.
Monique Jarrett (she/her) is an international wheelchair dance champion, body positivity activist, and influencer, active across multiple fields. She has appeared in nationwide advertising campaigns supporting people with disabilities and as a supporting artist BBC TV dramas such as Hollyoaks.
In 2021, she performed at the Paralympics Team GB Homecoming Celebration, expanding the expressive potential of performance to challenge and transform conventional narratives about disability. Most recently, Monique collaborated and performed in Stopgap’s Lived Fiction (2024) and spent a year with the company as a ‘Future Leader’ training as an Assistant Artistic Director.
Lily Norton (they/them) is an autistic dance artist, audio describer and access consultant. Reimagining access as a creative act, Lily explores new ways of moving, sensing and communicating through dance. They are particularly interested in how access tools, such as audio description, sensory access, and relaxed performance, can become creative, collaborative elements of the work itself.
Lily currently works with Stopgap Dance Company as Content and Access Artist, co-leading on access strategy, consultancy, inclusive communications and creative development across live and digital projects. They also deliver training on disability, neurodiversity and accessible practice.
In partnership with Dance House Ireland
For more info and how to apply for a space on this workshop, email [email protected]
Disrupt Disability Arts Festival’s Embedded Access Training Programme is funded by Rethink Ireland’s Disability Participation and Awareness Fund 3.0 and supported by Safe To Create, Fire Station Artists’ Studios and Dance Ireland.
If you have questions about accessibility for any of our events, or you require further information, please contact [email protected]
