A life spent asking what dance can do
A life spent asking what dance can do
When Balbir Singh stood at Windsor Castle on 12 March to receive his MBE, the moment carried the quiet weight of many journeys. The citation recognised his services to dance, but the story behind that recognition stretches far beyond theatres and stages. It reaches into community halls, hospital wards, care homes, research laboratories and sports spaces. It reaches into conversations between cultures, between generations and between disciplines that rarely meet. And, like many stories of movement, it begins with migration.
Balbir was born in India and moved to the UK as a child, growing up in Bradford at a time when many families were building new lives while holding tightly to memories, languages and traditions from elsewhere. Migration has a way of shaping identity in complex and sometimes contradictory ways. For a young person navigating two cultural landscapes, the question of belonging is rarely simple. What do you carry forward from the place you were born? What do you absorb from the place where you grow up? And how do those influences eventually find expression in the work you make?
These were not questions Balbir set out to answer through art. In fact, his early path did not point obviously towards dance at all. He initially studied law, following a route that might have led to a very different career. Yet something about that direction never fully settled. Gradually, the pull of movement and expression began to outweigh the logic of legal studies, and Singh enrolled at the Northern School of Contemporary Dance in Leeds. The experience opened a new world: contemporary dance training that encouraged experimentation, physical exploration and critical thinking about what dance could be.
At the same time, another influence was quietly deepening. Balbir had begun training in Kathak under the guidance of Padmashri Guru Pratap Pawar MBE, entering the centuries-old guru-shishya tradition through which knowledge in Indian classical dance is passed from teacher to student. The training demands discipline, patience and humility. It is as much about listening and observing as it is about technique. Over time, the rhythmic precision and narrative richness of Kathak began to shape his artistic thinking.
Yet he was living and working within contemporary Britain, surrounded by a dance ecology that encouraged experimentation and hybridity. Rather than choosing between these influences, Balbir began to wonder what might happen if they were allowed to coexist. Could classical tradition and contemporary practice speak to one another without either losing its integrity? Could heritage become a living resource rather than something preserved at a distance?
Not fused. Not diluted. Simply placed in conversation.
That question became the foundation for the company Balbir founded in Leeds in 1995. Balbir Singh Dance Company began as a modest initiative but with a clear sense of purpose: to explore the meeting point between Kathak and contemporary dance, and to do so in a way that felt both respectful to tradition and responsive to the present.
Over time, that exploration produced a distinctive body of work. Productions such as Reflections of an Indian Dancer, The Wise Ones and Decreasing Infinity revealed an artistic voice shaped by both rhythmic intricacy and contemporary physicality. Audiences encountered a conversation unfolding through movement.
As the company developed, touring became an essential part of its identity. Work travelled across the UK and internationally, reaching audiences who might never previously have encountered Kathak within a contemporary dance context. Touring brought the company into dialogue with a wide range of cultural environments, each place adding something new to the ongoing conversation about identity and artistic form.
Across more than two decades, the company has appeared in theatres and festivals while also maintaining strong relationships with communities across Yorkshire and beyond.
Balbir returns to the same communities over time, allowing relationships to develop gradually. Community centres become familiar meeting places. Care homes become creative spaces where movement opens unexpected conversations. Participants recognise the artists when they return, and the work continues to evolve through those encounters.
Some of the most moving moments in Balbir Singh’s career have emerged in precisely these environments. In health care settings, dance workshops often unfold slowly and gently, shaped by the needs and rhythms of participants living with dementia, or other conditions that affect communication. Music begins, a gesture is offered, and gradually movement starts to ripple through the room. Someone remembers a rhythm from years earlier. Someone lifts a hand to mirror a dancer’s gesture.
Dance becomes less about performing and more about presence
Perhaps it is this openness to different contexts that has led Balbir’s work into places rarely associated with choreography. Over the past two decades, he has collaborated with medical professionals exploring the relationship between creativity and wellbeing. At Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospital in London, projects connected to the INPUT Pain Management Programme have brought dance into dialogue with patients living with chronic pain.
In these settings, movement offers a different way of understanding the body. Patients, clinicians and artists share a space where gesture and rhythm can express experiences that are often difficult to articulate through words alone. Dance becomes a tool for reflection, exploration and sometimes relief.
Research partnerships have extended these conversations further. At Durham University’s Wolfson Research Unit, where Balbir Singh is a Fellow, artistic practice meets academic inquiry in ways that open new avenues for understanding the body and human experience. One such collaboration, Unmasking Pain, brought artists, clinicians and people living with chronic pain into the same space, asking what happens when movement, research and lived experience begin to listen to one another. The project went on to receive the Fuse Award from the Centre for Translational Research in Public.
These collaborations reveal something important about Balbir Singh’s approach to art. Dance is not confined to the stage. It is a way of asking questions about how people live, feel and connect with one another.
Other collaborations have emerged through unexpected partnerships. Sports organisations, for example, have found common ground with dancers in their shared interest in rhythm, discipline and physical awareness. Academics bring analytical perspectives that illuminate new aspects of movement and embodiment. Each encounter expands the possibilities of what dance might do.
Alongside these projects runs another, quieter strand of Balbir’s work: mentorship. Over the years, he has guided more than a hundred emerging artists, supporting younger dancers and choreographers as they find their own voices in the field. Mentorship rarely appears in headlines, yet it shapes the future of any artistic discipline. Conversations in rehearsal studios, moments of encouragement and thoughtful critique can influence an artist’s trajectory for years to come.
Balbir has also created Nayak, a digital platform designed to widen access to classical Indian dance training across disciplines and geographies. By connecting artists internationally, the initiative reflects a belief that tradition can remain vibrant only if it continues to circulate and evolve.
Leadership, after more than two decades of sustaining a touring company, inevitably brings reflection. What does it mean to guide an organisation over such a long period? For Balbir Singh, the answer often lies in creating structures that allow others to contribute. The company is a space where dancers, collaborators and communities shape the work together.
In 2012, Balbir Singh Dance Company became a National Portfolio Organisation with Arts Council England, securing long-term public investment that helped stabilise and expand its activities. That recognition acknowledged the company’s growing contribution to the UK dance landscape and its commitment to working beyond traditional cultural centres.
The MBE awarded in 2026 marks another moment of recognition, yet Balbir tends to speak about it with characteristic modesty. When he reflects on the honour, he often turns his thoughts to the people who shaped the journey: his parents, his guru, the dancers who joined the company, and the communities who welcomed the work into their spaces.
Art rarely happens in isolation. It grows through relationships.
Looking back across more than twenty years of work, what emerges most clearly is not a single defining production but a pattern of connection. Dance appears in many places: on theatre stages, in community halls, in hospitals, in research collaborations and in the lives of the artists who have trained alongside Balbir.
The story continues to unfold, as all living artistic practices do. New projects, new collaborations and new questions lie ahead.
On receiving an MBE
When I learned that I would be receiving an MBE, I felt very still for a moment. It is a great honour, and I accept it with deep gratitude . . .
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