Alexander Whitley Research

About
Born in 1980, Alexander Whitley is a British contemporary
choreographer and currently a prominent figure in the increasing
collaboration of art and science.

Whitley’s career originated in ballet. He trained at the Royal Ballet

School in London, and then went on to a career with the
Birmingham Royal Ballet.
He began to work in contemporary dance from there and build
his own style, working with several well-known companies such as Rambert, Sydney Dance
Company, Michael Clarke Company and Wayne McGregor Random Dance.

Notable qualities in Whitley’s choreography include strong musicality and key use of visual
designs.

Affiliations
Whitley is the artistic director of the
Alexander Whitley Company, as well as a
New Wave Associate artist at Sadler’s Wells
and an associate at Rambert (‘Frames’).

He is also a lecturer at The Bartlett School of

Architecture on the Design for Performers
and Interaction Masters programme, and an
Artist Fellow at Queen Mary University of
London.
Balletboyz performing Whitley’s choreography in
Whitley is a former choreographic affiliate for ‘The Murmuring’ at The Linbury Theatre
The Royal Ballet Studio programme , and he has
also choregraphed for companies such as Balletboyz, Birmingham Royal Ballet (‘Kin’) and
Cancodo (‘Beheld’). He is also a member of the New Movement Collective.

Whitley’s pieces have won multiple nominations over the years. These include:

 2012 Arts Foundation Fellowship

 2014 Sky Arts Southbank Award
 Outstanding Performance in the Critics’ Circle Award (twice)

The Alexander Whitley Company

Established in 2014, Whitley’s company centres around the concept of bringing together
artists from a variety of different styles and backgrounds and has become famous for its
collaborations and networking.
The company’s establishment was prompted by the increasing possibilities of digital
technology and collaboration with other, completely different areas of work such as science
and design.

The Alexander Whitley Company also has a

Creative Learning Programme. Workshops are
taken to schools with the aim to educate
children on how artists and science can come
together; physics and choreography. In
Whitley’s words, “They both require some form
of inspiration to set them off”.

This collaboration of science and dance is the

focus of one of the company’s most famous
productions, ‘8 Minutes’, which was created
‘8 Minutes’
with input from RAL Space scientists.
The Alexander Whitley Company
This production incorporates even more technology and
scientific elements, including a score by electroacoustic
music innovator Daniel Wohl and high-
definition imagery by visual artist Tal Rosner.

Other works of the company include:

 ‘Strange Stranger’
 ‘Celestial Motion’
 ‘Noumena’
 ‘Between Two Fires’
 ‘Ulysses Awakes’
 ‘Pattern Recognition’

‘Noumena’
The Alexander Whitley Company

"I think there are new fields of relationships in movement that are opened up
through interactive technology that can take dance and choreography to
uncharted places."
-Alexander Whitley