WHEN Tamsin Fitzgerald, founder and director of 2FaCeD Dance Company, learned recently that she had won a prestigious choreography award, she was thrilled on more than one level.

As well as being delighted her skill and talent as a choreographer had been recognised with a Rayne Choreographer's Fellowship, she was equally happy at what the award said about the dance form in which she works.

"I am passionate about getting recognition for urban dance and what we're doing, especially in Hereford," says Tamsin.

"Urban dance doesn't get taken as seriously as other dance - it's not seen as being as artistic. I am trying to change that," explains Tamsin, who finds it slightly frustrating that beyond the county her work is so well-thought of that she is often invited to be a guest speaker at conferences But the Rayne Fellowships, "an imaginative move to address the growth of intolerance, incomprehension and insularity in society by utilising the strong communication skills of choreographers to act as bridge builders", are about more than the prestige.

"In the next 18 months I have to do five secondments with other organisations, two of them in a different style."

Top of Tamsin's wish list is working with Matthew Bourne, choreographer of the all-male Swan Lake, which featured in the film of Billy Elliot. "I'm trying to sort out a date to work with Matthew Bourne's Adventures in Motion Pictures company."

Another area of interest is musical theatre. "The fellows (Tamsin is one of six recipients of a fellowship) are given a list of people we are able to work with, and Chicago is on the list. I'd also like to work at the Young Vic."

One other secondment is to be in the area of social welfare and Tamsin will probably do hers with the National Society for Epilepsy.

"It will provide the opportunity to look at people with a hidden illness and at how you can use dance as a tool," she explains. "Because I believe that exercise and brain activity are linked."

For this first stage of the award, Tamsin has been given £10,000 and will receive a further £5,000 in 18 months to invest in a project. "The second stage is to fund a big idea, not necessarily a piece of choreography, based on what I have tried out."

Tamsin, who has lived in Hereford most of her life, arrived at urban dance from a more traditional dance background. "I'd always done ballet, tap and modern dance," she says. "I did panto and performances with the Operatic Society."

On leaving the sixth form college she applied to drama school, not believing she would secure a place at a dance school but, when she spotted an ad for the Northern School of Contemporary Dance and applied, she got in.

"It was a revelation, " she recalls. "It was the first time I'd done any contemporary dance."

Now, at 30, Tamsin has discovered that the pleasure she used to get from dancing has been overtaken by choreographing.

"I get more of a buzz as a choreographer than I ever did as a performer."

2FaCeD Dance Company was born when Tamsin began teaching classes at the Courtyard shortly after it opened and became involved in dance projects at Whitecross School, which led to the formation of the male dance company.

This year, 2FaCeD will be touring with its new show, Rewind, playing three nights at the Courtyard from Thursday, June 28, to Saturday, June 30. To book, call 0870 1122330.