TAMSIN Fitzgerald, founder and artistic director of the internationally acclaimed, Hereford based 2Faced Dance Company, has won a second major choreographic award to add to the Rayne Fellowship she won in 2007.

She learned recently that she is one of just 12 recipients of a funding award from The Jerwood Choreographic Research Project.

A National Dance Network initiative, supported by the Jerwood Charitable Foundation and directed by DanceXchange, the Jerwood Choreographic Research Project is designed to stimulate new choreographic ideas and thinking to benefit the arts and cultural ecology in Britain.

Tamsin will use her share of the £123,000 made available through the project for research into the creation of a multi-sensory outdoor dance experience targeted at 19 to 35-year-olds, referencing club culture, circus and performance.

“The idea was sparked by the fact that young people in this age group will spend £40 to £60 on a night’s clubbing, but won’t pay £10 a ticket for theatre. My aim is to combat that by making a piece of immersive dance theatre with links to clubbing, an experience rather than a show.

“I was also inspired by Heston Blumenthal and his approach to food, the way he confounds expectation through the senses. And Glow, the Cultural Olympiad event held on Hereford’s Castle Green last year, influenced the idea too.

“I have from January to June to research this idea, and that will involve going clubbing, and working with Markus Pabst of Base Berlin, and we’ll have a composer, DJ, dancers and set designer.

The aim is to come up with a production that can tour major venues across the world.”

The news came as Tamsin and the company prepared to take acclaimed pieces Two Old Men, Out of His Skin, 7.0 and Subterrania on tour for six weeks, a tour which takes in Bulgaria, Oslo and Jersey as well as Hull, Leeds and Newbury.

More than 400 grant applications were received, and 30 shortlisted artists and creatives then pitched their proposed research to a panel of representatives from the 32 contributing organisations.

Establishing a new culture of investment for choreographic research, the model is based on a group of arts and academic organisations across the country, together with the Jerwood Charitable Foundation, pooling their funds and expertise to become producing partners for new projects with a total of £123,000 available.

Among the other projects receiving funding are research into the memories and movements of older people and choreography for young people with profound and multiple learning disabilities.

“We would have loved to fund more than 12 projects, but feel that the final selection represents a real breadth of innovation in choreographic thinking,”

said David Massingham, artistic director of DanceXchange. “We had a fantastic response, which really demonstrates the appetite for this kind of funding.”

The contributors will now support and work with each funded project to realise the research goals over the next 12 months.

“It’s nice to get the time to research the idea properly,” says Tamsin. “The first thing I’ll be doing is working with Ministry of Sound in London to understand the artistic input that goes into club evenings.

“I’ve done a lot of things for other people,” says Tamsin. “Now I want to do it for myself.”

For details of 2Faced Dance Company’s dance classes and to book, visit 2faced dance.co.uk or call 01432 276807.