MEET THE F**LS
We are Gracefool Collective. We make "post-intellectual-pseudo-spiritual-feminist-comedy-dance" for rebel Grannies and bored punks (and everyone in between.)
We make work collaboratively. We perform collaboratively. And we provoke, imagine, re-imagine, resist, defy, debate, create, fail, laugh and play collaboratively.
Gracefool Collective was formed in 2013 by a group of five friends, co-collaborators and co-conspirators - Kate Cox, Sarah Maria Cook, Sofia Edstrand, Rachel Fullegar and Rebecca Holmberg. We met at Northern School of Contemporary Dance and joined forces through a shared desire to make the work we wanted to see, a shared resistance to traditional contemporary dance aesthetics, a shared love of comedy, and a short lived (somewhat incongruous) fascination with David Hasselhoff.
We wanted to find a model of collaboration which did not rely on one person to drive the collective vision, which would also support and champion any member of the collective to follow their own path.
So the company has been through many iterations over the years. First we were five, then for many years there were four, then three and currently there are two lead artists - Kate Cox and Rachel Fullegar - and many more friends and collaborators without whom Gracefool Collective would not exist.
MEET KATE
Kate trained at Northern School of Contemporary Dance, graduating in 2013 with a first class BPA (Hons). Kate has worked nationally and internationally as a performer, choreographer, movement director and teacher with companies such as Made By Katie Green, Company of Others and LA-based performance artist Trulee Hall.
Kate is a long term collaborator with Art-Pop band Stealing Sheep. She has choreographed five live shows for them; Luma Disco, (for Manchester International Festival), Suffragette Summer (an outdoor promenade performance for festivals across the UK) WOW Machine (an immersive music and dance experience inspired by electronic music pioneer Delia Derbyshire), Eurotopia (a live show for the 2023 Eurovision Festival opening concert, performed for a crowd of 20,000 at the ‘Eurovision Village’ in Liverpool) and Glow Show.
She was the movement director for Streetwise Opera’s Re:Sound Manchester project, working on 9 micro operas accompanied by the BBC Symphony Orchestra. She’s worked with Commonwealth Theatre as co-choreographer and rehearsal director for their show ‘Fast, Fast, Slow’ for the Blackburn Textiles Biennale, and most recently as a facilitator and collaborator with Lucy Barker for Wondering Heights: A Dance for the Moors for Bradford 2025.
Since 2021 Kate has been a lead artist on Yorkshire Dance’s ‘Company of People’, an ongoing project in collaboration with Performing Gender; running regular creative dance groups with communities across Leeds aged 10 - 90 and co-creating work with them as a touring performance company. In 2023 the company toured to Boulevard Festival in The Netherlands and Gender Bender Festival in Bologna.
in 2024 she trained as a Dance Well facilitator and has taught classes in Italy and Japan.
MEET RACHEL
Rachel graduated from NSCD in 2013 with a 1st class BPA(Hons), the Undergraduate Achievement Award and Kathleen Tattersall Leadership Award. Her love for making immersive, interactive, interdisciplinary work for intergenerational audiences has led to long-term collaborations as a performer/deviser with companies such as Same Difference, Yorkshire Life Aquatic, Qdos Creates and Rusticus Arts. In 2019 Rachel worked with Filskit Theatre on Stella, a children’s show about a star technician, which undertook two UK tours, culminating at London’s Southbank Centre. In 2021, she toured nationwide in Filskit’s colourful light and performance show for 6-18 month olds, Kaleidoscope, stepped into their new show The Artist in 2022 and is currently a creative facilitator for their Wonder Gigs. Most recently, she was the choreographer and Team Lead on The Nutcracker 2021 and Snow Queen 2022 Christmas experiences at Blenheim Palace for Rusticus.
Rachel also works as a Movement Director, most recently for Drag ‘N’ Drop! (Ri Baroche), on the film Nettle Day (Elevator Productions), Rosy Maple Moth (Julie Burrow), Theatre State’s new musical Say Yes To Tess at Leeds Playhouse and, for both Blackout and Black Roses with Bunbury Banter Theatre Company, Scotland, where she is Associate Artist and a mentor for their youth theatre programmes.
Rachel also has a keen interest in sector development, sitting on Yorkshire Dance’s Artist Advisory Board for 4 years and spending 2 years as Independent Board Member for the Leeds Dance Partnership. She’s worked as a Lecturer in Dance at NSCD since 2015 and has taught extensively across the north of England as a community practitioner for Qdos Creates and Yorkshire Dance, where she was co-artistic lead for integrated company Raised between 2016-19.
Photo by Drazen Priganica
Photo by Maria Alzamora
Photo by Drazen Priganica
Photo by Lidia Crisafulli
Photo by Gracefool Collective
Photo by Gracefool Collective
Photo by Gracefool Collective
Photo by Gracefool Collective
Photo by Gracefool Collective
Photo by Gracefool Collective
Photo by Gracefool Collective
Photo by Drazen Priganica
Photo by Maria Alzamora
‘Gracefool craft their arguments neatly, offensively, powerfully… It’s liberating to feel as though you’re in dialogue, rather than be talked at… Gracefool Collective are, for whatever my salt is worth, a company worth watching.’ Alex Wood, Theatre Bubble
We believe in humour as a powerful tool to transform ideas and undermine social convention. We believe in collective action as a radical tool for social and political change.
We believe in collective joy as resistance.
We believe in embracing failure.
We believe art should be made everywhere, by everyone, for everyone.
Our work is about serious stuff, without taking itself too seriously. No to bullshit. No to pretentiousness. Yes to slapstick.
Stockholm Fringe Grand Prix Award for Excellence in Performance Art (2018)
Underbelly Untapped Award for Innovative New Writing (2017)
COMMISSIONS
Strike a Pose (Yorkshire Dance, 2022)
BA1 Student Showcase (Northern School of Contemporary Dance, 2021)
CertHE Student Showcase (Northern School of Contemporary Dance, 2020)
Anima (New Education for Contemporary Dance, 2017)
Carmina Burana (Avesta-Grytnäs & By-Folkärna Pastorat, 2017)
Reveal Festival (Bolton Octagon, 2017)
Northern Connections (NSCD, 2017; 2015)
NSCD Foundation & BPA1 Student Showcase (NSCD, 2014 & 2015)
Arrivals and Departures festival (NSCD/Yorkshire Dance 2013)
Furnace/ Transform (West Yorkshire Playhouse, 2013)
ARTIST SUPPORT & INVESTMENT
For Arts Sake, Yorkshire Dance (2019-2022)
Aural/Oral Dramaturgies, Battersea Arts Centre & Central School of Speech and Drama (2020)
Bridging the Gap & REACH touring programmes (2019)
Choreodrome (2017; 2018)
Dance Partner Project, Yorkshire Dance (2017/18)
CARP artists, Barnsley Civic (2016)
CATAPULT artists (2014/15)
“Through humour and compelling physicality Gracefool’s blend of dance-theatre entertains whilst tackling thorny, current-day subjects. Thus their work is that magic combination of being both accessible and meaningful, funny whilst you want to cry. They stand out in the rigour of their investigation and research, both inside and outside of the studio. Their pursuit of dramaturgical detail, comic timing and physicality puts their work firmly in a national and international context and has allowed them to build a loyal audience.”
Wieke Eringa, CEO and Artistic Director of Yorkshire Dance
FRIENDS & SPONSORS
