Lenses on Leadership

Lenses on Leadership is a new video podcast exploring leadership, creativity, access and change with changemakers in dance, the arts and beyond.

Created and presented by Stopgap Dance Company’s Co-Assistant Artistic Directors and Future Leaders, Will Spencer and Kajsa Sundström, the series brings together artists, cultural leaders and changemakers to discuss, investigate and explore what leadership looks like today, what it has been, and what it might need to become in the future.

Rather than presenting leadership as a fixed position, title or set of rules, Lenses on Leadership approaches it from multiple perspectives. Through open and curious conversations, Will and Kajsa ask how lived experience, identity, environment and privilege influence the ways we lead, collaborate and make decisions.

Kajsa, a white Swedish woman with wavy blonde hair, at the IETM conference in 2025. She holds a microphone and stands next to someone holding a piece of paper with handwritten notes on.

"It has been such a privilege to get to interview our guests - they have all shared their journeys and knowledge so generously, and I am so grateful to all of our colleagues, mentors and leaders who have supported us on this project. I hope that our audience will either recognise themselves in these interviews and in our guests' journeys, or perhaps begin to reflect on the spaces they are in and if they want them to be different."
Kajsa, Co-Host and Future Leader

Explore the Series

Episode 1 with Etta Murfitt

We speak to Etta Murfitt, Dancer, Choreographer and Associate Artistic Director of New Adventures .

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Episode 2 with Tom Ryalls

We speak to Tom Ryalls, writer, cultural organise, co-founder of BAP! and Chair of Graeae.

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Episode 3 with Kristina and Sadé Alleyne

We speak to Kristina and Sadé Alleyne, Artistic Directors of Alleyne Dance.

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Lenses on Leadership grows out of Will and Kajsa’s experience on Stopgap’s Future Leaders programme, which has enabled them to examine their own developing leadership practices while learning from people across the cultural sector. The series extends those conversations beyond Stopgap, bringing together leaders from different careers, backgrounds and areas of practice to share ideas, recognise common experiences and explore the different ways leadership can take shape.

Each episode begins with the person behind the leader, combining informal conversation about career journeys and formative experiences with deeper discussion about artistic practice, organisations and cultural change. Guests are invited to consider questions like: What does good leadership look and feel like? Who gets recognised as a leader? How do power and privilege operate within creative spaces?

A white person wearing a baseball cap, stands and speaks into a microphone.

Will, a white male-presenting person, stands and speaks into a microphone at a conference.

Access and inclusion sit at the heart of these conversations. The podcast asks how inclusive thinking might reshape the way work is created, organisations are structured, audiences are welcomed and leadership itself is understood. Rather than seeking one definitive model of leadership, Lenses on Leadership embraces different perspectives, contradictions and questions. Ultimately, it is an invitation to remain curious about how we lead ourselves, how we lead others, and how leadership can help shape a more creative, accessible and equitable future.

The podcast is available in video and audio, with captioning and transcripts.