The Bare Toed Dance Company is a CIC based in Newcastle.
The artists – Lynn Campbell, Rachel Kurtz and Jo Templey weave together their wide knowledge and experience to offer creative movement opportunities and aerial dance, including performance, for children, families, educators and other practitioners. We also offer professional development. 

Our work is supported by a wealth of knowledge and research into child development and is strong as an inclusive practice. What we do has grown from the company member’s combined experience and influences and, of course, the deep wisdom of our moving bodies. We are lucky to have wonderful community of artists and practitioners around us here in the North East and in networks beyond. 

Lynn Campbell, Director

Lynn has over ten years experience as a primary school teacher, a teacher for children with special needs and as a special needs advisory teacher. She gave up teaching in 1998 to complete her Dance Movement Psychotherapy MA at The Laban Centre and to develop her work as a Movement Therapist and as a dance artist.

Lynn has also studied with The National Childbirth Trust and is an Active Birth Teacher offering movement for pregnancy sessions and Baby Yoga Play sessions with babies 0 – crawling and their mums. In 2013 Lynn qualified as a Movement Medicine teacher and is enjoying bringing these new skills to her work with Bare Toed and to creating opportunities for adults to explore dance, creativity and well-being.

Jo Templey, Director

Jo has an extensive background in teaching and facilitating groups and individuals of all ages for over 20 years. She holds qualifications in performing arts and aromatherapy massage therapy and has worked as a freelance community artist, performer and therapist. Whilst working in after school clubs and teaching English as a Foreign Language, Jo began to focus on creativity as a way to inform learning. As a dancer, she has explored numerous techniques and recently inspired by Movement Medicine. Her training in Mountain Leadership and Forest School is supporting her dance and play outdoors. As a singer Jo uses voice in her work and also composes for the companies performances. Jo’s work with Bare Toed combines her varied professional experience, her passion for movement play and dance and instinctive empathy when working with children and families, mums and babies and educators.

Rachel Kurtz, Director

Rachel started dancing ballet at the age of 3 and at 13 decided that it was not a career path she wanted to follow. She gathered valuable life experience through performance, travelling and working abroad, running independent creative businesses, and becoming a parent, exploring a variety of artistic media along the way but never quite losing touch with her dancing. Her love of movement eventually found an outlet through 5 Rhythms dance, which she trained to teach in 2001 and she continues to study, teach (www.deeperdance.org.uk) and be inspired by. She also dances in the air for Bare Toed performances and as a free-lance aerialist and is a keen gardener and lover of the outdoors. Fascinated by people and psychology, Rachel has and HEFC in the subject from Northumbria University and has attended several short courses at the Gestalt Centre in London. She is particularly interested in research into creativity and movement play in relation to child development and neurology.

Associate Artists