Shobana Jeyasingh presented with her CBE
Shobana Jeyasingh was appointed a Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 2020. The Covid pandemic delayed the official ceremony but on 8th July Shobana was presented with her CBE award by Her Royal Highness The Princess Royal at St James’s Palace.
Shobana Jeyasingh is an internationally recognised choreographer who founded Shobana Jeyasingh Dance 30 years ago. She has created over 60 critically acclaimed works for diverse platforms including stage, screen and unconventional public spaces such as Palladian monasteries, fountain courtyards, city offices and even the steps of St Paul’s Cathedral as part of the Cultural Olympics in 2012. Her work is noted for both its intellectual rigour and its visceral physicality.
Over the course of a distinguished career she has collaborated with scientists, gallery curators, composers, film makers, digital creatives as well as dancers and designers to make bold multidisciplinary work. Her work has toured extensively to Europe, USA, India and the Far East and is now part of the national curriculum in the UK. Her recent dance works Material Men redux (2017) and Contagion (2018) were both chosen to be in the top ten dance works of the year by UK broadsheets.
Notable commissions include Rambert Dance Company, Ballet Black, Wayne McGregor|Random Dance, Beijing Modern Dance Academy, Contemporary City Dance company Hong Kong and most recently Opera National du Rhin France.
Shobana is the recipient of numerous awards for choreography as well for her contributions to the dance world though her writings and talks. She was a judge in the BBC’s Young Dancer in both 2017 and 2019. Shobana has honorary doctorates from the universities of Surrey, Leicester and Chichester. She was awarded the prestigious Woman of the World Award in 2017
Asked what this award meant to her Shobana said “Contemporary dance choreography with its history of disruption, equity and innovation has to still fight its corner in the world of arts. So accepting this award on behalf of all who bring contemporary dance into being is a matter of joy specially at this difficult time for art making”.
To find out more about her amazingly creative work have a look at her website https://www.shobanajeyasingh.co.uk/
Very many congratulations Shobana