Founder
Lee Smikle
Artistic Director, Producer, Teacher, Choreographer, Mentor
Traveling from Bradford to London, Lee moved to pursue his passion at Rambert School of Ballet & Contemporary Dance at eighteen years old. Following his training he worked as a performer for many years with Matthew Bourne’s New Adventures, touring the world in many of his most famous productions.
In 2007, Lee moved towards teaching, mentoring, and sharing dance with young people. He taught for many years at Trinity Laban Centre for Advanced Training (CAT) program and choreographed for The Place (CAT).
One of Lee’s most impactful undertakings was his pursuit to create his own youth company - SYD Shoreditch Youth Dance Company - in 2010. Based at RichMix in East London, SYD was developed to nurture aspiring young dance artists and provide them with the opportunity to create and learn from industry professionals. SYD was pioneering in its approach, being one of the first contemporary youth companies of its kind to shift focus towards treating young dancers as professionals and future leaders rather than solely as youth dancers. It provided professional-level training to youth dancers, offering them unique and inspiring opportunities to train, lead, explore, create and tour personally motivated works.
After relocating to Brighton, Lee formed a sibling company – SYD:B. SYD now becoming Smikle Youth Dance instead of Shoreditch. Lee incorporated successful elements of the original, such as its focus on community building, tailored technique teaching, innovative choreographic opportunities, and, of course, the SYD spirit created by all the SYD alumni.
Artists & Teachers
Natalie Ayton
Associate Artist, Resident Contemporary Dance Teacher & SYD Rehearsal Director
(@natalieayton)
Natalie, a Brighton native, trained at Rambert School of Ballet & Contemporary Dance and London Contemporary Dance School. She has had an exciting and varied professional performing career, working with companies such as Gecko Theatre, Matthew Bourne’s New Adventures, Wayne McGregor Company, Retina Dance and Candoco Dance Company.
Before moving back to Brighton, Natalie spent several years working at Sydney Dance Academy, where she led workshops for the Pre-Professional Year Course. She was also a teaching artist on the DancED team and was the Lead Teaching Artist for Mulkadee Youth Arts Festival for three years.
Natalie has been an integral member of the Smikle Team since 2010 creating innovative choreographic works with our SYD:B students, such as Maelstrom from ORIGINS ’22. She is also a lecturer at IC Theatre in Brighton alongside creating and producing her own creative dance works. Keep your eyes peeled for new work from Natalie!
Laura Careless
Resident Ballet Teacher
(shewolvesproject.com)
Laura Careless is a Brighton-based dance artist. Through dance performance and education, she advocates for the reclamation and rewilding of our physical instincts. Laura continues to perform and tour her personal solo work. Through Teaching, she seeks to empower students to move like themselves, prioritising their physical, mental and soulful wellbeing.
Laura is a graduate of The Royal Ballet School, London; the Ecole-Atelier of Maurice Bejart in Lausanne, Switzerland; and The Juilliard School Dance Division in New York City. Aside from teaching the BATCH programme at Smikle Dance Studio, she is a Curriculum Specialist for Juilliard’s K-12 department and is the Dance Education Consultant for Rambert.
Chess Dillon-Reams
Contemporary Teacher, Choreographer
(thehiccupproject.com)
Chess began her professional training with the Centre for Advanced Training at Laban, where she worked with Lee Smikle, Hofesh Shechter & Henri Oguike Dance Company.
Driven by human, social themes and real-life experience, Chess is inspired by work that seeks to connect to audiences regardless of their prior experience of contemporary dance or theatre.
Mathilde Navarro
Contemporary Teacher
(doppelgangercollective.ch)
Mathilde Navarro grew up in Geneva, Switzerland, but moved to Leeds to study at Northern School of Contemporary Dance. More recently, Mathilde has completed master’s degree in International Event Management with goals to combine an integrate her passion of dance and the arts with a more organisational and facilitative approach.
Mathilde is one of the choreographers, performers and founding members of the Doppelganger Collective based in Geneva, Switzerland. The collective is a cross-disciplinary, multi-lingual, response to contemporary affairs, including live performance, film, photography, art and more. Mathilde’s practice is rooted in the notion of instinct and risks as inspiration to develop new actions as evolutions of movements used in everyday life.
Joel O’Donoghue
Contemporary Teacher, Choreographer
(joelodonoghue.co.uk)
Joel has worked as a performer for a range of internationally renowned companies such as: Pina Bausch’s Tanztheater Wuppertal, Luca Silvistrini’s Protein, Ben Wright’s BGROUP, and Hagit Yakira Dance.
As a choreographer he has performed his own work at a variety of established venues both in the UK and abroad, such as Sadler’s Wells Lillian Baylis Studio, Tramway, The Place, Tripspace, and L’Escaut (Brussels). He was also commissioned to create a dance film work for Ballet Boyz, titled ‘Yes’, which premiered in 2021 as part of an online festival celebrating the life of Sir Ken Robinson.
In 2016 he received a Distinction in Performance Design and Practice, at UAL, and has since used these skills to design, source and construct set and costume for both his own work and other peoples.
Clair Thomas
Ballet Teacher
(ballet-brighton.com)
Clair trained at The Royal Ballet School, London and began her professional performance career with The English National Ballet in 1992. During her career she also danced with London City Ballet, Het Nationale Ballet in Amsterdam, Brussels Ballet in Belgium and The Michael Clark Company in London.
Clair founded her own school in 2015 - Ballet Brighton - where she teaches Royal Academy grades for children and young people and has weekly adult ballet classes for a range of levels. She has taught on the BATCH Pre-Vocational Programme for the past 3 years.
Oliver Robertson
Contemporary Teacher, Choreographer
(@o_robertson_movement)
Ollie trained at Northern School for Contemporary Dance for his bachelor’s degree and London School of Contemporary Dance for his master’s, alongside a work placement with James Wilton Dance Company.
Ollie continues to perform and choreograph with James Wilton Dance Company alongside developing his own movement practice. Taking inspiration from capoeira, martial arts and acrobatics, Ollie’s practice is focussed on developing the relationship between the body and the floor.