Developing and directing movement for dance, theatre, opera and film for over twenty years.

benwrightcreative.com website in development

contact me via Instagram @ben_wright_movement

or agent

Amy Markatis | CVH Management

amy@clarevidalhall.com

Hi - I am a freelance choreographer and movement artist based in London and West Yorkshire in the U.K. I trained at The Rambert School of Ballet and Contemporary Dance and over the last three decades have built a multifarious career in dance, opera, theatre, and film. My practice encompasses work as a choreographer, director, educator, intimacy facilitator, mentor and yoga teacher (with an approach influenced by Vanda Scaravelli)

As a cultural leader I have held positions as: Artistic Co-Director at Candoco Dance Company (2017-2020), Associate Director/Choreographer for Skanes Dansteater in Malmö, (2014-2017), and interim Artistic Director for National Dance Company Wales (2021). My work supports and nurtures performances from professional dancers, actors, singers, musicians, students, and community groups. I was awarded a fellowship with the Clore Cultural Leadership Programme in 2016 and lectured at Northern School of Contemporary Dance from 2022-2024, specialising in choreography, improvisation, and performance.

My choreography has spanned small, mid, and large-scale contexts, from UK Theatres, English village halls, London’s West End, Welsh cricket grounds to international opera houses, Swedish sculpture parks and Beverly Hills High School.

Recent work as a movement director includes Midsummer Night’s Dream (Opera North), Chariots of Fire (Sheffield Theatres) Orlando (The Garrick Theatre) with Emma Corrin, intimacy direction for My Policeman with Harry Styles (Amazon Studios) and Funny Woman for (Sky Atlantic) La Boheme (The Kennedy Centre, Washington DC) and the film Every Little Thing is a Change (Northern Ballet)

As a Director Choreographer I created The Lost Thing for Candoco Dance Company/The Royal Opera House in 2019, a dance-theatre work based on Shaun Tan’s book of the same name performed by a fully inclusive cast of disabled and non-disabled, dancers, singers, and musicians. I also created A space in the dark for Black Box Dance Theatre, Denmark in the same year, inspired by the music of David Bowie.

In 2017 my work The Feeling of Going for Skånes Dansteater was filmed for cinema and digital release - A fully orchestrated staging of Icelandic pop icon Jonsi’s album GO, the work combined opera and pop singers with the Malmo Opera chorus and is available to stream at Marquee TV. Other choreographic work for Skånes Dansteater included To find a way with one another (2018), To see the world while the light lasts (2016) - both collaborations with Malmo Opera, Spectrum (2017), This moment is your life (2014) Small Acts, The Ghost Spot and A Summoning (in collaboration with Muisca Vitae 2010)

My chamber work has been centred around my pick-up ensemble bgroup which I launched in 2008. Work includes The Diminishing Present (2008), About Around (2010), The Lessening of difference (2011), Just as We Are (2013) and Point of Echoes (2018) which was awarded the first UK Rural Touring Dance Initiative commission. Sole directing credits include: The Walk from the Garden (Salisbury International Festival) and An Audience with Adrienne; A Night at the Opera (Bayerische Staatsoper Festival)

Other choreography Credits in Opera and Theatre include: Quality Street (Northern Broadsides), Boris Godunov (The Royal Opera House); The Insatiable Inflatable Candylion (National Theatre Wales); My Night With Reg (Donmar Warehouse/West End); A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Privates on Parade (Michael Grandage Company); The Perfect American, Sunken Garden (ENO);The Marriage of Figaro and Knight Crew (Glyndebourne Opera); Don Giovanni (The Metropolitan Opera); Betrothal in a Monastery (Opera- Comique Paris); Cunning Little Vixen and Rigoletto (Grange Park Opera); Romeo and Juliet, The Adventures of Mr Broucek (Opera North); Faust, Dead Man Walking, Macbeth, La Vie Parisienne and La Fanciulla del West (Malmo Opera); Twelfth Night (Donmar West End); Tobias and the Angel and In the Red and Brown Water (Young Vic).

A full catalogue of my choreography/movement work will be able to be seen shortly, in the tabs above.

As a performer I toured the UK with New Arts Club’s two man show Cupid’s Revenge in 2022 and in the early period of my career I performed in the US tour of Sinner for Stan Wont Dance, with Adventures in Motion Pictures (Now New Adventures), Ricochet Dance Company, London Contemporary Dance Theatre, Richard Alston Dance Company, and Amanda Miller’s Company: Pretty Ugly. In 1995 I co-created the role of the Prince in Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake and performed the work in seasons throughout the UK, London’s West End, Los Angeles, Broadway, Japan, and Korea. As an actor and puppeteer, I joined Nicholas Hytner’s premiere season of His Dark Materialsat The National Theatre in 2004, where amongst other roles I created the role of the Golden Monkey.