Jane Turner has been making "Emotionally propelled choreography...formidable"
(The Stage, London) since forming her own dance company in London in the 1990s. Her work has toured in UK and Europe. "Her images not only compelled the attention, they resonated long after in the memory"(MTD Journal of the Performing Arts). Her choreographic method maps the essential dynamics, histories and possibilities of individual bodies and selves to weave idiosyncratic and multi-textural choreographies "Excellent" (Suddeutsche Zeitung, Munich) and draws on wide experience working with different media and digital technologies that makes "Inventive use of films and projections that can alter the space and the dancer's bodies in weird and wonderful manner" (Time Out) to create sensual interdisciplinary dance experiences.
Born in 1963, I started taking classes in traditional dance theatre forms aged 3, by my teens was performing seasonally in panto chorus and at 17 won a best dressed disco dancer competition where the prize was a trip to New York where I met two teen heroes- Debbie Harry and Johnny Rotten. After taking a BA Performing Arts (dance major) at Middlesex University I danced with the Scala Ballet in Barcelona before falling into diverse experiences: teaching dance in a Rudolph Steiner school in Germany, performing with a children's theatre company, running a Community Dance Magazine/Organisation, took an MA in Performing Arts, led a dance group at the Brixton Fridge nightclub.
I came to the decision to make choreography in '89 creating "at the still point in the turning world" for my newly formed company, and have continued to create new dance and performance work ever since. My work has a strong interdisciplinary texture despite being resolutely in the contemporary dance tradition, and has been seen at theatres from the Palladium to the ICA, at railway stations and in city squares, in colleges and playgrounds, in London, England, Europe and Canada. Much of my work explores femaleness: biology, representations, expression, and often experiments with new technological integrations. An interest in how the world works underpins an aesthetic that embraces the epic in the everyday, interconnections between the personal, cultural and scientific.
Apart from my independent dancetheatre work I have enjoyed many collaborations with other artists and media.
Since 1999 I have been actively investigating the science-art interface with scientists, artists and new interactive technologies. This has resulted in the creation of new performance software systems used in emergent performances eMerge (2004) ICA London, CAMAC, France, and Madrid. This research is now part of a PhD I am pursuing with a bursary from University College Chichester. I am a p/t lecturer at London Metropolitan University and live with my photographer husband and, now, 2 children in Hertfordshire. I am half Welsh, which is nice.