Claire Pençak Choreographer

Claire studied English Literature and Anthropology at Oxford Polytechnic and then went on to do a MA in Dance at the Laban Centre, London.  Over the years she has continued to develop her dance practice with Matthew Hawkins (UK), Russell Dumas (Australia) & Françoise and Dominique Dupuy (France) and has performed in Scotland, England, France, Portugal, Zimbabwe and Australia.

She moved to Scotland in 1991 to take up the post of Dance Artist in Residence for the City of Aberdeen and since 1993 has been working as an independent dancer, teacher and choreographer in the UK and overseas.

Following a year working in Australia, Claire returned to Scotland and established Tabula Rasa Dance Company in 1999.

Her choreographic work usually emerges out of a collaborative process with dancers, musicians and visual artists and has a highly visual, expressive and poetic style. She is interested in creating performances for children and adults and for theatre and non theatre spaces.

Claire teaches professional, student and community dancers and in recent years has been a guest teacher at the Esçola Superior de Dança in Lisbon and the Scottish School for Contemporary Dance, Dundee.

She currently lives in Orkney.

Quee MacArthur Composer

Quee MacArthur's compositions use a wide range of acoustic and electric instruments mixed with sampled sound to create original works with influences from both traditional and contemporary music.

He has created sound scores for many dance companies in Scotland including X Factor, Scottish Youth Dance, Freshmess , Gilmore Productions and Tabula Rasa Dance Company.

Since 2002, he has played bass and collaborated in writing and recording CDs for the Scottish band, Shooglenifty.

Quee is also one of Scotland’s most experienced and accomplished dance accompanists and has an active interest in Capoeria.

Tara Hodgson Dancer

Tara was brought up in Inverness. She trained in contemporary dance at Dundee College and then the Northern School for Contemporary Dance, Leeds. Since graduating ten years ago she has danced with Scottish companies Freshmess, X Factor, Tabula Rasa Dance Company, Aye! Productions  and Arts in Motion. She has also performed in Belgium, Portugal, France and Spain. Tara is currently based in Glasgow and  working with Gilmore Productions. This is Tara’s second show with Tabula Rasa.