Choreographer Dame Siobhan Davies wins De Valois Award for Outstanding Achievement at National Dance Awards

A choreographer at Coventry University’s Centre for Dance Research (C-DaRE) has received the highest honour at the National Dance Awards - the De Valois Award for Outstanding Achievement.

Recognised as one of the most influential contemporary choreographers, Dame Siobhan Davies has worked in the field for more than 50 years and was given the award for her significant impact on dance in the UK and beyond.

The award was presented by the London Critics’ Circle, whose dance section is made up of more than 60 writers and critics. This group organises the National Dance Awards, with the De Valois Award being the highest honour they give for a lifetime contribution to dance.

Siobhan was a founding member of the London Contemporary Dance Theatre and, in 1982, co-founded the company Second Stride, which has been lauded as one of the most influential dance companies of the 1980s as well as the first contemporary dance company to tour the United States.

She later served as Resident Choreographer at the Rambert Dance Company, one of the UK's leading dance institutions.

In 1988, she founded Siobhan Davies Dance, a company that broke away from traditional touring models to focus on creating work through collaboration and artistic research. Rather than staging large-scale productions for theatres, the company developed intimate, process-led performances that often responded to specific spaces or themes.

This approach led to the opening of Siobhan Davies Studios in London in 2006 – a series of dance studios designed not just for rehearsal, but as a centre for dialogue between choreography and other art forms.

The studios have since become a home for independent artists, where dance merges with film, visual art, sound and movement research, challenging conventional ideas of what choreography can be and where it belongs.

Over the years, her artistic approach has embraced visual arts, film and sound, with works that challenge traditional boundaries of choreography and performance. Her 2012 film All This Can Happen toured internationally, and her recent work Transparent premiered at the London Film Festival in 2023, continuing her exploration of movement through new media.

Appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in 2020 for services to dance, Dame Siobhan remains an Associate Professor at C-DaRE, where she continues to mentor emerging artists and influence the future of contemporary dance.

Watch the video of Siobhan speaking about choreography. 

Find out more about Dame Siobhan Davies and the Centre for Dance Research.