Etta Murfitt

Etta is English and trained at London Contemporary Dance School. A founder member of Images Dance Company, she also danced with Scottish Dance Theatre, Arc Dance Company and Aletta Collins Dance Company. She teaches widely, including: Rehearsal Director for Shobana Jeyasingh Dance Company and being a freelance faculty member of London Contemporary Dance School and the Young Place in London. Apart from her extensive work with Matthew Bourne, Etta has performed on TV in Mrs Hartley & The Growth Centre and Aletta Collins' Storm (both for BBC TV) and choreographed Le Nozze di Figaro (Holland Park Opera), The Way of the World (Wilton's Music Hall) and A Midsummer Night's Dream (Albery Theatre, London).

Best known, perhaps, for her longstanding association with Matthew Bourne's work, Etta created roles for Adventures in Motion Pictures (AMP) between 1991 and 2002, including Clara (Nutcracker!), Rita (The Car Man). Madge (Highland Fling) and in the original productions of Town and Country, The Infernal Galop and Deadly Serious. Etta became AMP's Associate Director in 1995 and, its conception in 2002, Director of New Adventures, for whom she created the role of Peg Boggs in Edward Scissorhands (Sadler's Wells, Japan, Korea and US tour). She was Rehearsal Director for the original AMP Swan Lake, and Associate Director for its revivals, as well as for Highland Fling, The Car Man and Nutcracker!