Paper Moon

(he/him)

Parsifal James Hurst, known as PJ, started dancing at the age of 13 when he was involved in a Cheshire Boys Dance project. From this, he became very involved in what Cheshire dance had to offer, doing week and weekend residentials, meeting new people, socializing, creating, and performing dance. This turned into a real hobby and something PJ knew he really wanted to be pursuing and took the next step by studying GCSE dance outside of his school curriculum. It was at this point he began to look at the ‘dancing bug’ he had and how he could pursue a career in this industry. At 16, he continued his studies and developing into A-Level dance then into doing a year prevocational training course down in London on The Place’s Centre for Advanced Training (CAT) scheme.

PJ then went into full-time 3 years training at London Contemporary Dance School, The Place, on their degree course where he successfully graduated with a First-Class Honours in the summer of 2012.

After graduating he joined Luca Silvestrini’s Protein Dance Company, which was his first professional job, touring nationally and internationally on their show ‘LOL’.  He has gone on to work with other choreographers and their productions including Gary Clarke in his companies award-winning work ‘COAL’ and ‘Wasteland’ as well as Matthew Bourne’s New Adventures ‘Swan Lake’ where he toured worldwide from 2018-2020.  His Portfolio career extends as well as performing in shows and dancing in music videos with an appearance in the film ‘Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again’, an Opera ‘Death in Venice’ and dancing for Fallen Angels Dance Theatre in ‘Upon Awakening’ & ‘Hell Can Wait’ – The latter being performed alongside adults in recovery.

As well as performing, PJ has taught and facilitates education projects with a great range of people. His love and experience of teaching stretches across various platforms including teaching to School pupils, University Students, PRU pupils, and adults with disabilities and dementia.  PJ loves to enable people to move, grow and use dance as a medium to enhance people’s lives.

PJ started working with Shaper/Caper in 2021 as Dance Artist upon moving to Scotland to start his new adventure with his wife who he met whilst touring in Scotland.  PJ has performed in lots of our shows such as ‘Teeny Weeny’, ‘Right Up Your Street’ and more recently in ‘Snow Qween’ as the much loved Petey the Polar Bear. PJ now leads our ‘Gilbert’s Adventures Through Books’ performance workshop sessions for under 5’s and our Well Good project.