An artist who makes brazen works about being a human, and a female, all at the same time.

Sophie Unwin (Yorkshire) creates witty, wordy works which challenge our everyday and offer questions and new ways of looking at the mundane.

Her work usually derives from autobiographical scrawl, observations of the every day and a fondness for the sardonic in an attempt to find answers to life’s many questions. Combining movement, honesty, words and wit, Unwin tries to discover the wonder and nonsensicality of the human condition.

Informed by a background in dance and performance, her work straddles different disciplines and harks at humour, cabaret, dance and theatre. Weaving autobiography, performance writing, and what it means to be a female on stage she explores the complexities of the self in relation to her practice, in engaging and accessible ways.

She is also co-director of SLAP a performance platform in York and dance/theatre/cabaret duo 70/30 Split who were The Guardian’s “most exciting dance moment of 2014”. Sophie Unwin has also worked and collaborated with artists including Wendy Houstoun, Ann Liv Young, Beth Cassani, Gary Clarke, Rita Marcalo, Alistair MacLennan, Jo Fong, Lucy Suggate and Two Destination Language.

Unfortunately, after one year, Sophie had to leave Performing Gender – Dance makes difference due to health reasons. At the beginning of the second year, Hanna Buckley replaced her as the UK dance maker.