Alesandra Seutin

'Dance for me is a way of expression and through my work, I intend to speak volumes.' 

Alesandra Seutin is an award-winning multidisciplinary performance artist and creator, whose focus is exploring movement as a foundation for theatre, media and site-specific works. The daughter of South African and Belgian parents, Alesandra was born in Harare, Zimbabwe. She calls herself an 'Afropean'. An inspirational leader with a multifaceted career spanning two decades, she has reached global audiences through her work as an artistic director, choreographer, performer, mentor, teacher, movement director, dramaturg and writer for performance and music.  

Alesandra earned her training at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music & Dance and Middlesex University in London. She works internationally, mainly dividing her time between Senegal, Belgium and the UK. The world is her muse and through her creations she comments on social, political, and economic reality with dance, song, and music. The notion of "getting or taking a place" is central to Seutin’s work, as is finding your place in major cultural institutions: the spaces that are not obviously 'yours'. 

She founded her company Vocab Dance in 2007 and has steadily built its reputation for creating high-quality, artistic performance. Renowned for their distinctively theatrical choreography and blend of movement vocabulary, text and dance, the Company’s work is focused on the exploration of subjects which impact our society, and with this capture their audience in a journey of compelling and outspoken dance theatre. Vocab Dance’s repertoire is diverse with over eleven productions within its catalogue, ranging from solos to ensemble pieces for indoor stages and outdoor settings.   

Alesandra Seutin’s work has toured across the UK, Europe and internationally and she has received over 20 choreographic commissions including Sadler’s Wells, KVS, Merce Cunningham Company, Wellcome Collection, Channel 4, Phoenix Dance Theatre and National Youth Dance Company. 

Still herself performing, Seutin has recently returned to the stage as performer, choreographer and movement director for Dear Winnie, an award-winning, multi-disciplinary performance work about the life of Winnie Mandela. 

Alongside her work with Vocab Dance, Seutin was announced as the Co-Artistic Director of the famed École des Sables in Senegal in 2020. Having trained at the institution herself under Germaine Acogny, Seutin is a worldwide ambassador and teacher of the Germaine Acogny technique. In collaboration, they both direct the development of the internationally renowned training programme and professional performance company, Company Jant-Bi | Germaine Acogny. She was also guest director for the UK’s National Youth Dance Company from 2019-2022. 

In addition to her work on and off stage in performance and writing, Alesandra Seutin spends much of her time mentoring and developing the careers of future generations of makers and creatives. 

As a young woman in Belgium, Alesandra Seutin could not take up too much space, could not be herself. That's why at 18 she moved to London to live where she felt freer, without labels stuck on her: womanhood, Black woman, Afro-European woman. This allowed her to "take her place" or "hold her space". 

PHOTOS (high-res)   
(high-res images which you can use free of charge with attribution)

Performances by and with Alesandra Seutin