Jo Lindsay
(she/they)
Jo has been dancing since they were just 3 years old, starting at Elma Whyte’s School of Dance in Paisley with ballet classes, then quickly moving on to embrace many other dance styles including jazz, tap, modern, highland and hip hop. Jo trained and performed with Elma Whyte’s school until her early teenage years, when she switched to join classes at Right2Dance, also in Paisley. It was here, at Right2Dance, that Jo discovered and fell in love with contemporary dance for the first time. Jo soon joined the Right2Dance Youth Company, with whom they had the fantastic opportunity to train, create, rehearse and perform for events across Scotland over the next few years.
Whilst attending Glasgow University to pursue their other major passion – wildlife and the environment – through studying a BSc in Zoology, Jo eventually came to the difficult decision to leave Right2Dance and prioritise her studies and university life. This didn’t stop her from dancing altogether though, as she soon joined one of the university’s dance societies and enjoyed taking classes and performing with them whenever she could whilst studying. Leaving university and embarking on a career in wildlife conservation was hugely exciting and challenging for Jo, but also meant that their involvement in dance began to take more of a back seat for a few years. Jo occasionally managed to attend adult contemporary and ballet classes in Glasgow and Paisley during this time, but eventually felt that dancing, training and performing regularly was something they were urgently missing from their life. Yearning to re-join the dance world, Jo decided to return to college in 2020 to re-train in dance at Dance Studio Scotland (Glasgow Clyde College), obtaining their HND in 2023.
Returning to dance training in their mid-20s and also in the midst of the covid pandemic was a huge challenge for Jo, more difficult than they could have anticipated, but sheer determination to embrace their love for dance got them through! Following their HND, Jo then moved to Dundee to train for one final year at The Scottish School of Contemporary Dance, graduating with a 1st class BA in 2024.
Throughout her dance training Jo has developed keen interests in a variety of areas including: screendance, site-specific and outdoor performance, interdisciplinary/multi-media collaborations, dance theatre, and community and participatory dance. As well as working for Shaper/Caper, Jo is also part of Dance Base’s 2024-2025 DEBS program, a fantastic opportunity which she hopes to use to continue developing her technical and performance skills, meet like-minded dance artists and pursue her own creative interests. More than anything, Jo has a firm belief that dance can be for everyone and is keen to encourage people of all ages, backgrounds and abilities to get involved, be creative and just enjoy having a boogie!
Jo was thrilled to join the Shaper/Caper team as a Dance Artist in September 2024, especially after being thoroughly inspired by a week-long work placement with the company during their BA year and seeing their award-winning show ‘Small Town Boys’. Jo’s role largely involves delivering Shaper/Caper’s flagship creative learning project, ‘Well Good’ in local primary schools in partnership with the NHS, as well as supporting many other projects as part of the engagement team.
#IWannaDanceWithSomebody
Who would Jo like to dance with?
‘I would most like to dance with my absolute QUEEN Hayley Williams (solo artist and lead singer of Paramore) – her dance moves on stage are so full of joy, silliness, sass and energy, and as my favourite band/artist, getting to boogie with her to my favourite songs would be a dream!!’