In this episode of Deep Down, I speak with dancer and facilitator Bryony Pennington about freedom - not as an ideal, but as a lived experience. Bryony finds it in movement, in adventure, in not needing to ask permission. I tend to find mine in stillness, in structure and in the quiet safety of home.

We come from different places, but what unfolds between us is a kind of creative alignment: two artists with deep mutual respect, exploring how opposite ways of living can still lead to something shared. We talk about our art, care, touring, home, and the unexpected intimacy that comes from difference - not just despite it, but because of it.

This is a conversation about joy, risk, grounding, and how we each make space to be free in our own way.

In this episode of Deep Down, I sit down with my lifelong friend and collaborator, Masumi Saito, an extraordinary movement artist whose work resists easy categorisation. Over nearly two decades, we’ve made art together across stages, galleries, and films, and this conversation captures a beautiful moment where we pause to talk about the deeper threads behind it all.

We speak about what it means to communicate through movement rather than words, and how her Japanese heritage, which is something she once tried to shed, has become a powerful anchor in her life and practice. Masumi opens up about the loss of her mother, and how grief deepened her connection to ritual, culture, and beauty. We explore her resistance to titles like “choreographer” or “dancer,” and why “movement artist” finally feels like the truest reflection of how she navigates the world.

This is a conversation about joy, identity, silence, naming, and what it means to live seriously, and playfully, at the same time.

In this solo episode, I reflect on the strange, galvanizing force of being commissioned to create. In the early days of my career, commissions carried me forward, one after another, an unbroken wave of invitation and encouragement. I thought it would always be that way. But after a long, unexpected lull, I had to learn a different rhythm: how to keep working without waiting to be asked.

From early support by the London Sinfonietta and the BBC Philharmonic to more recent collaborations with O/Modernt and ENBYouthCo, I explore the role of commissions - how they can offer not just deadlines, but meaning, focus, and momentum. And how, in their absence, we find other ways to give ourselves permission, and accountability to keep making art.

It’s about career, but also about life: how any genuine external pull can be a quiet, necessary force.