• Photo: Tom van Nuffel

  • Credit: Manuel Vason

  • Credit: Manuel Vason

  • Photo: Ben Hopper

  • Photo: Bruno Clement

  • Photo: Tom Van Nuffel

  • Biography

    Iona initially trained at art school in Scotland graduating as a Fine Artist and Printmaker. She went on to study at the School for New Dance Development in Amsterdam and, following solos and a world tour, she studied at Cirkuspiloterna in Sweden (now DOCH).

    Iona has performed her own work internationally and has also performed and toured with major Belgian directors, Wim Vandekeybus and Alain Platel.

    Her new company Knights of the Invisible sees her duet on Black Regent  with musician Joseph Quimby Jr. with whom Iona has worked since 2010. They are currently touring dance and circus festivals.

    More on Iona here

Iona Kewney

As a queen of dislocation, Iona is a feral imp, a wild child with a mesmerising presence in performances that lie somewhere between dance, circus and ritual. We were first aware of Iona as the oscillating body at the front of the stage in Alain Platel’s VSPRS, a reinvention of Monteverdi’s Vespers.

“Getting lost in her clothes, Iona tied herself in knots, her legs appeared where her arms should be as she cavorted and created physical mayhem with her body. She is technically brilliant and entirely unique as both a performer and a visual artist. We first worked together for the inaugural circus festival at the Roundhouse, Circus Front, in an evening of contemporary contortion. Her work has since developed from a solo to a duet and, with support from Jeunes Talents Cirque Europe, Crying Out Loud is now helping her to move forward to create a group show.” Rachel Clare

Press

  • ‘I witnessed the suffocating intensity of Iona Kewney and could barely speak.’

    The Guardian

  • ‘Iona Kewney accomplishes moves that would make a corkscrew envious.’

    The Herald

  • ‘What do you do with a talent like Iona Kewney’s? The Scottish dance artist is unquestionably one of the most distinctive performers, an artist with an extraordinary flexible body, a lively imagination and a keen sense of the absurd.’

    The Scotsman

  • ‘Meanwhile, Iona Kewney, a real life wild child whom Alain Platel has learnt not to harness, contorts herself like a crab in a straitjacket, the bendiness of her limbs paradoxically suggests spasticity.’

    The Telegraph

  • 'Iona is awesome - there's no denying it. Her physical, visceral, shamanic performance is an extraordinary blend of contemporary circus and radical dance.' Total Theatre