Photo Credit: Pete Martin
About 'Funmi Awewole Elliott
I am a performer, dramaturge, and academic with a passion for exploring the intersection of movement and storytelling.
I am a performer, dramaturge, and academic with a passion for exploring the intersection of movement and storytelling. My journey in the arts began at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria, where I studied for a B.A. in Languages during the 1980s. As the artistic director of the university’s poetry society, The Thursday Group, I discovered the joy of blending language and movement in performance. After graduating, I worked as a freelance journalist, radio actress, and Associate Producer with the late Michael Enahoro’s Prime TV before relocating to Britain in the 1990s.
In the UK, I embraced a career in the performing arts, spending a decade touring with African dance drama and physical/visual theatre companies. My credits include performances with Ritual Arts, Horse and Bamboo Mask and Puppetry Company, Artistes-in-Exile, Adzido Pan-African Dance Ensemble, Mushango African Dance and Music Company, and the contemporary dance company, The Cholmondeleys. In 2013, I published Sea Salt in the City, a collection of poems that began during my time in Ibadan.
Photo Credit: Pete Martin
Alongside my performance career, I contributed to the development of the dance sector through my voluntary work with the Association of Dance of the African Diaspora (now part of One Dance UK), writing for its newsletters and spearheading initiatives for sector development. Additionally, through a portfolio career, I built an international reputation as an arts facilitator, dance advocate, and dramaturge. In 2019, I was honoured with a lifetime achievement award by One Dance UK for my contributions to Dance of the African Diaspora.
My academic journey has been equally transformative. Through it, I have researched dance in present-day Africa and the Diaspora, dance as a ‘workplace’, the cultural industries, and practice research. I am particularly interested in the arts of post-independent Africa. My studies encompass an M.A. in Postcolonial Studies, a Professional Graduate Certificate in Education, and a PhD in Dance Studies. After my PhD studies, I taught in the dance department at De Montfort University, Leicester and as a member of the research institute, I investigated Creative Health and supervised PhD students. I am leaving in 2025.
Projects
In 2022, as a senior practitioner, I established FAE Studios as a platform for my solo performances, productions, and educational and research projects. My aim (amongst other things) is to investigate and reflect on certain personal and collective experiences, informed by the postcolonial condition, its aesthetics, realities and its possibilities.
Enact Arts CIC is a not-for-profit start-up, I founded in October 2024. Its mission is to run initiatives that support professional development and practice in and through the arts. The artistic focus of the organisation is mainly on the African and Diasporic dance and performance and Creative Health.
Companies I've worked with
