SiDI Central

Maggie Morris MA

Co-Founder

Maggie Morris began her career as a professional dancer in New York touring internationally. Her interest in healthy dance practice stems from her career as a dancer, choreographer, artistic director and dance educator.  As Artistic Director of Phoenix Dance Company on seeing the high injury rate in the company Maggie instigated a research project which developed fitness and nutrition programmes for the dancers, which significantly reduced injury. Working with Dr Yiannis Koutadakis of Wolverhampton university this comprised of some of the first dance science research on professional dancers in the UK and, also helped contribute to developments in Dance UK’s Healthier Dance Programme.  Since then, Maggie has had a growing interest in this area, leading to her founding Safe in Dance International with Sonia Rafferty in 2014.

Maggie’s career included also included performing in musical theatre, film and television.   In 1990 she was appointed Artistic Director at Phoenix Dance Company, UK.   After leaving Phoenix Maggie became a freelance director, teacher and choreographer.   She has choreographed, performed and directed for theatre, film and television internationally.   She was the Head of Undergraduate Studies at Laban, London from 1998 to 2000. In 1999 she became a subject specialist inspector to inspect all Dance and Drama Awards Provider’s in the UK and was appointed Her Majesty’s Inspector to the Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted) in July 2001.

Over the past 15 years Maggie Morris’ focus has been as a dance educator.  Supporting and developing professional performing arts training in the UK, most specifically dance.  

Maggie has delivered Leadership and Management training for the Department for Education and was a member of the team undertaking the review of funded professional training for UK government.  She has also worked as a management consultant in the USA designing corporate training for the international communications company AT&T. In 2022 she took on the role of Interim Executive Director of the English National Ballet School.

Maggie has been honoured to be on the boards of several organisations. She is a founding member and on the executive committee of Personal Safety in Dance and also is vice chair of the Bonnie Bird Choreography Fund.  She has been a member of the Arts Council Dance panel, the Dance UK executive committee, English National Ballet School Board and the Council for Dance Education and Training Accreditation Board.  

Maggie has written on the performing arts for publications in both the USA and Europe.   She has an MA in International Relations and Diplomacy from the School of Oriental and African Studies, London University.

In 2021 Maggie received the One Dance UK Jane Attenborough Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Art Form.

Sonia Rafferty BA(Hons), MSc (Dist), FHEA

Co-Founder

Sonia has almost 40 years’ experience as an ‘academic artist’ – a performer, teacher, choreographer, director, mentor, researcher, consultant and author. She has been a member of the Dance Faculty at Trinity Laban on London since 1991 and is currently Programme Leader of the BSc Dance Science.

A long-established dance technique teacher, Sonia has regularly delivered workshops and masterclasses in the UK and internationally. As a dancer/singer with the innovative electric voice dance company, La Bouche, she toured extensively on the theatre circuit, clubs and festivals, including Glasgow Mayfest, the Edinburgh Fringe and Glastonbury Festival Pyramid stage. The company also produced several albums, culminating in a record contract with CBS Records. Since then, Sonia has performed with V-Tol Dance Company and with several independent choreographers, more recently in site-specific work with Athina Vahla and Lizzi Kew Ross. She has directed and choreographed for her own company, Blueprint Dance Company, and co-directs Double Vision Dance Company, working on several large scale site-specific community commissions.

In her role as a consultant in safe and healthy dance practice, Sonia provides professional development for companies, agencies and training institutions.  She is co-author of “Safe dance practice: An applied dance science perspective” which has become a seminal text in the field. Sonia has presented at several conferences, as well as authoring and co-authoring a number of research and journal articles. Her research interests range from dance-specific fitness to the embodied practices of dance technique teachers. These combined interests have led to qualifications as a Personal Trainer, experience as a member and Deputy Chair of the International Association for Dance Medicine and Science (IADMS) Education Committee and peer reviews of journal and book proposals.

Sonia uses her broad experience as a portfolio practitioner to support the development of dance practice and dance science application.  Her main focus is to combine all her expertise and experience in a variety of fields so that dance science, pedagogical research and an understanding of the conditioning needs of dancers can together inform training, performance and curriculum planning.

In 2020 Sonia received the Once Dance UK Applied Dance Science Award and in 2022, the IADMS Dance Educators Award.

Tina Krasevec MSc

Project Manager

Tina’s background in Sociology and Philosophy, combined with her formal education in contemporary dance from The London Contemporary Dance School, reflects a unique blend of academic and artistic pursuits. Tina further specialized in dance by obtaining an MSc in Dance Science from Trinity Laban, which deepened her understanding of the physical and psychological aspects of dance.

Currently, Tina works as an academic lecturer at Bird College and as a technique tutor at Trinity Laban, where she is dedicated to fostering student well-being by promoting autonomy, creativity, and curiosity. Her teaching philosophy emphasizes empowering students to take ownership of their learning while upholding the rigour of practice. She aims to balance both the artistic and scientific elements of dance education.

Tina has always been a strong advocate of safe dance practice and is very proud to be a member of the SiDI team, which she joined as a project manager in 2022.

Beth Ackroyd

Social Media Co-ordinator

Beth graduated with a BA (Hons) Degree in Dance Studies from the University of Roehampton in 2019, an MSc in Dance Science from Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance in 2020, and the Certificate in Ballet Teaching Studies with RAD RTS from the Royal Academy of Dance in 2023. Beth has also been awarded the status of Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA) and is a certified Progressing Ballet Technique (PBT) and Rambert Grades instructor.

Beth is a dance teacher, community dance artist, and dance science educator. She has a vast amount of experience facilitating dance for people of all ages in various styles of dance. In addition to her role as Social Media Coordinator for SiDI present Beth is also; Vice-Principle of Butterfly Ballet, a Freelance Dance Artist with DanceWest, Sadler’s Wells and the Royal Academy of Dance (RAD) Step into Dance Programme; Freelance Tutor at The Urdang Academy; research assistant; and a Diploma in Dance Education (DDE) Assessor for the Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing (ISTD) among many other teaching and academic roles.