Sharon Watson
Contemporary Category Final Judge
Sharon Watson is the 7th Artistic Director of Phoenix Dance Theatre. Trained at the London School of Contemporary Dance, Sharon Watson was one of the first female Principal Dancers invited to join the all-male award-winning Phoenix Dance Theatre, and toured with the company from 1989 to 1997. Having left Phoenix to pursue a number of other ventures including setting up her own company ABCD, Sharon returned in 2009 as the new Artistic Director. In 2010 she was named as one of the Cultural Leadership Programme’s Women to Watch, a list of 50 influential women working in arts and culture in the UK. Sharon recently received the Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts’ Companionship Award from the school’s co-founder and Patron, Sir Paul McCartney. Sharon is a trustee of Matthew Bourne’s New Adventures, The Place, West Yorkshire Playhouse, and an artistic advisor for Central School of Ballet.
Sharon has most recently been appointed as independent chair of the steering committee, bidding for European Capital of Culture Leeds 2023. Sharon was recently recognised at the Northern Power Women Awards as part of the very first ‘Top 50 Power List’ and also awarded The Sue Ryder 2016 Yorkshire Women of Achievement in Business Award and the Yorkshire Woman of the Year 2016 award.
