The Company

About Us

Founded in 1988 by Louise Richards and Kevin Finnan MBE, we create world class dance-circus productions that tour extensively to rave reviews across the globe. From full-length productions for theatre touring to flexible work for the outdoors and large-scale performance events, our sell-out productions integrate athletic physicality, powerful narrative, incredible digital imagery and emotive sound scores.

Our work takes its inspiration from common human concerns and our connection to the world in which we live, with recent works exploring flooding, the pressure of time, fear and captivity, and our relationship with water, the Earth and energy. Our dancers perform on stunning sets, with aerialists and singers, in incredible settings and to breath-taking effect.

We are committed to promoting equality in all aspects of our work, and to creating a culture that respects, values and champions diversity. We uphold equal opportunities and recognise and celebrate diversity. Treating everyone we work with equitably, fairly and with dignity and respect, ensuring that we do not discriminate on any grounds is one of our core values. Our team and the people we work with are at the heart of this commitment and we celebrate the opportunities we have to work with people from a wide variety of backgrounds and experiences.

In everything we do we want to engage with people from all cultures and identities, and of all ages, including people who are underrepresented in the world of dance, circus and outdoor arts. This includes but is not limited to those from working class and ethnically diverse backgrounds, or who experience racism, people who are neurodivergent, people who are disabled and people from the LGBTQIA+ community. We are proud of our record of nurturing diverse artists and offering employment and exceptional opportunities for professional development. Inspiring the next generation of children and young people from all backgrounds across the UK has been part of our ethos since the beginning. We want to play our part in creating a better society, now, and for future generations.

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion are fundamentally important to us and are led from the top. We have an active Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Group bringing together board and staff members, who meet regularly to review our policies and action plans, report back to our board, and ensure we are listening, adapting, and being held accountable to our responsibilities in this area.

Motionhouse makes work about people, for people. We invite you to come and join us!

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Theatre productions

Our full-length productions tour to theatres across the UK and internationally. We seamlessly integrate digital imagery with live performance, creating a ‘living film’ that draws audiences into the magical world on stage.

Powerful and emotive, these productions inspire and move; generating repeat tours, large audiences and reinforcing our reputation as an outstanding touring company. Recent years have seen two highly acclaimed US tours, as well as tours of mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, Japan, and regular appearances throughout Europe.

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Outdoor productions

Pioneers of outdoor dance, our range of flexible productions tours to festivals and non-theatre spaces. These short, sharp injections of dance and circus are designed to be performed outdoors and up-close rather than in a conventional theatre.

Immensely popular on the international festival circuit, we tour this work extensively to enormous crowds, inspiring audiences who are not necessarily familiar with dance in their own communities, free of charge. These works are also increasingly popular for corporate and other events.

We are currently touring a series of outdoor productions that range in scale and duration from a series of short duets, to our incredible show WILD that takes place on forest of tall poles, and a collaboration with NoFit State Circus on giant Jenga blocks. We also offer a series of larger-scale spectacles incorporating dancers and JCB diggers.

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Large-scale events

With a three-and-a-half-decade track record of creating work in unusual settings, we have secured a reputation as the ‘go to’ company to create visionary large-scale outdoor events. Our Artistic Director Kevin Finnan MBE was Choreographer and Movement Director for the Opening Ceremony of the London 2012 Paralympic Games.

From beaches to stately homes and from animating a working harbour to bringing an inner city wasteland to life, as well as being commissioned to celebrate the London 2012 Olympic Games from bid success through launch to opening, we are renowned for our spectacular large-scale outdoor events.

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Inspiring the next generation

We have an enviable reputation for delivering an excellent education and training programme at our studio in Leamington Spa, throughout the UK and further afield. We deliver a wide range of learning and training projects, in schools and in the community, for students and for young professionals, focusing on skills-development and creativity.

Our teaching is accessible and inspiring and emphasises a sense of achievement for all. We offer a range of activities for all ages and abilities and frequently offer the opportunity to develop creative work for performance. See our classes page for both weekly and regular holiday classes at our home base and explore our learn and train pages to find out more about the range of opportunities we offer.

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Motionhouse is supported using public funding through Arts Council England.

The quality of their work is incredible and they constantly break new ground, their spectacular productions are accessible to everyone, whatever age or experience of theatre and dance

Liz Moran, Director, Gulbenkian

I am always delighted to programme Motionhouse. They consistently inspire and excite audiences including schools and young people. They are always inventive with great visuals and state of the art technology

David Fry

Our partnership with Motionhouse is incredibly valuable…working together we have seen our audience grow

Adam Burgan, Octagon Theatre

Motionhouse’s work is some of the most startling and original performance based contemporary dance I have had the pleasure of witnessing… the original dynamic performance and sheer talent of the performers leaves the viewer utterly amazed. The incredible physical achievements and beautiful dance by this group are just captivating.

The Company

Liz Moran, Director, Gulbenkian

David Fry

Adam Burgan, Octagon Theatre

Sir Richard Taylor. Weta, New Zealand (Creators of Avatar and Lord of the Rings)

Our Aims

Creation – Inspiration – Participation