Photograph by Dariusz Dziala

Ayala Kingsley is a poet, dancer, and graphic designer. She was born in Israel a lifetime ago, but brought up in an industrial suburb of Manchester. She now lives in Oxford where she earns her living by designing books and saves her sanity by performing butoh – to the extent her eyesight allows the former and her knees the latter.  She is a founder member of the dance collective Café Reason Butoh Dance Theatre, which seeks to express in movement the same ‘commitment to existence’ that her poetry does in words.