Choreography Lived Fiction
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On this page, you will find details about the DANCING project collaboration with Stopgap Dance Company for the development of the inclusive and accessible choreographic piece ‘Lived Fiction’.
The arts-based research conducted within the DANCING project involved a collaboration with Stopgap Dance Company for the development of the inclusive and accessible choreographic piece ‘Lived Fiction’. Stopgap is a company composed of dancers with and without disabilities, whose mission is ‘to create an inclusive world where diversity is not just accepted but pursued, a world where no one is limited by prejudice against Deaf, Disabled, or neurodivergent people’ (Stopgap).
The collaboration commenced in 2022 and focused on the development and performance of an inclusive choreographic work, which set out to treat accessibility measures for audiences as an intrinsic part of the creative process and that could represent diversity in a way that aligned with the ethos and the objectives of the DANCING project. A workshop titled ‘Inclusive Dance: Addressing Challenges, Sharing Experiences, and Exploring Tools for Participatory Research’ involving Stopgap, academics from various disciplines and other stakeholders was held on 23 August 2022 at Maynooth University. Then, Stopgap engaged in a long creation process that intertwined with various research phases that preceded the world premiere in April 2024.
Stopgap member Nadenh Poan (Photo courtesy of Stopgap – Photographer Chris Parkes).
As explained in our report, an initial research engagement with Stopgap was conducted during their residence in Ipswich (UK), in December 2022. A second and more in-depth engagement -with observation, semi-structured interviews with members of Stopgap, as well as a survey with audience members attending a work-in-progress or ‘scratch’ performance – was conducted during their residency at Dance Ireland premises in Dublin, in February 2023. During a residency of Stopgap at the University of Surrey (UK) in April 2023, the first staging and additional observation took place in a theatre setting at Guildford School of Acting. The arts-based research of the DANCING project culminated and ended with the world premiere of the piece ‘Lived Fiction’, directed and created by Lucy Bennett in collaboration with Stopgap, on 11 April 2024 in Dublin. The cast included Christian Brinklow, Monique Dior Jarrett, Emily Lue-Fong, Jannick Moth, Lily Norton (Audio Describer), Nadenh Poan, Hannah Sampson and Dan Watson (Voice of Dan).
The approach taken in the development of ‘quietly revolutionary’ work of ‘Lived Fiction’ points to how making access measures intrinsic to the creative process can provide a rich experience for all audience members – not just those with disabilities. Considering them artistically (and not as an afterthought) involves a creative vocabulary that combines choreography with audio description, captioning, tactile elements, and responsive sound design.
Stopgap member Christian Brinklow (Photo courtesy of Stopgap – Photographer Chris Parkes).
The performance ‘Lived Fiction‘ was reviewed in RTE and The Guardian, among others. Further positive reviews were published in dance magazines. In 2025, ‘Lived Fiction‘ has been candidate to the Sky Arts Award in the Dance category, with Stopgap present to the ceremony, which was broadcast from the Roundhouse in London and featured in Sky News. It was also nominated for the UK Theatre Awards 2025 in the category Achievement in Dance. ‘Lived Fiction’ Stopgap received the award for Artistic Innovation at the One Dance UK Awards.