Holly Blakey is a choreographer who’s work straddles live performance and film.
Interweaving live and commercial contexts, much of her practice often plays on the relationship between these distinct but not wholly separable worlds.
Blakey’s work as a Director and Choreographer has featured collaborations with music artists such as Rosalia, Harry Styles and Florence and the Machine and fashion houses among Burberry, Dior and Gucci.
Blakey is a recipient of a UK MVA award for her work on Delilah (Florence and the Machine) for ‘Best Choreography in a Video’. That same year she was also nominated as ‘Best New Director’.
After the world premiere of ‘Cowpuncher’ (2018) - a commission to reopen Southbank Centre’s Queen Elizabeth Hall - Blakey presented ‘Cowpuncher My Ass’ (2020), a sequel to the previous, costumed by Vivienne Westwood and scored by Mica Levi. The show and its sequels ran for five years, closing to a sold out Royal Festival Hall with accompaniment from a twenty piece string orchestra from London Contemporary Orchestra.
“I’ve never seen anything like it. From its risible title onwards, it literally writhes with self-loathing and misanthropy. This is frenzy without rapture, sexuality without pleasure, speed without exhilaration. It shoots from the conservatoire to the strip club, the ballet to the rave to the mosh pit. I can’t wait for what Holly Blakey does next.” The Guardian
