THE PLACE ANNOUNCES CHOREODROME ARTISTS 2024

As every year for the summer months, The Place, London’s leading centre for dance and performance, is excited to welcome a new annual cohort of Choreodrome artists to its building for two-week long residencies, to research and work on new ideas.

Choreodrome is one of the most important dance development programmes in the UK, enabling artists to explore new territories and have access to tailored support. It’s part of The Place’s range of artist development opportunities designed to nurture talent and facilitate the growth of independent artists’ creativity and sustainability. The 16 artists selected this year are researching ideas across a wide range of practices, from Hip Hop and South Asian dance practices to family works, illusion and magic tricks, storytelling, text and vocals.

A new addition to Choreodrome this year is a LCDS Graduate Residency Programme Four current LCDS 3rd year students (graduating in 2024) will receive support to develop a 15–20-minute piece to present at Resolution 2025, part of a suite of new Propeller projects designed to give recent graduates a lift to kickstart their creative careers in the crucial time period straight after graduation. The four students taking part in the Graduate Residency Programme are Samara Langham, Alex Whelan, Brooke Sorensen and Lucy Turner.

Speaking of the programme, Eddie NixonArtistic Director of The Place says:

“Creating something new and surprising takes time and resources. Choreodrome is where we make room for artists to explore their ideas without any pressure to arrive at answers. It’s a place for choreographers to discover the right questions.”

The creation of new dance thrives best in collaboration and as always, The Place works with a number of partners and experts in their field, in order to best support a wide range of artists from different practices and with different needs. Our partners this year are:

East London Dancesupporting theHip Hop Booster Pack

Artists Brooke Milliner and Isaac Ouro-Gnao will receive focused and specialist producing and creative support from East London Dance to engage in a period of R&D.

Karthika Nair supporting the Writing for Dance Booster Pack

Artists Solene Weinachter and Jackie Kibuka will receive support from writer, producer, and choreographer Karthika Nair to explore text in their performance work.

Corali partnership

The dance company exploring the relationship between dancers who identify as learning-disabled and those who do not; between dance and other art forms; and between professional and participatory artwork have been commissioned to create two dancer-led work-in-progress performances, which will be showcased in the theatre next year.

Kate Scanlan, Joint Creative Director and Chief Executive at East London Dance says:

“It is a pleasure to once again be working in partnership with The Place on Choreodrome. We have seen the difference this programme makes to those involved and cannot wait to offer more producer support and studio time to enable the selected Hip Hop dance artists to explore their creative ideas to share with the world.”

To all Choreodrome artists The Place offers a package of support which includes:

• 1-2 weeks of studio time
• Two producing support meetings
• Creative feedback
• Networking and introduction opportunities for new partners

The 16 artists and duos who were awarded this year’s Choreodrome Research Residencies are:

Aishwarya Raut - a dancer with Rambert since 2018, she has been performing around the UK and Internationally, working in film, fashion, stage and site-specific works. Aishwarya continues to develop her movement vocabulary with influences from Indian folk dance within contemporary movement. Her first work What About The Rain? was presented at Resolution 2024 and featured in Pulse Connects magazine.

Aishwarya will be exploring female narratives in folk tales from the Maharashtra region in India diving into topics of desire, resistance and the influence of nature on the human body through a duet.

Akshay Sharma - a choreographer and performer born and brought up in India and now based in London. He draws upon western contemporary forms and principles from non-European traditions by bringing together unique movement vocabulary, writing and his knowledge of Indian classical music (vocal).

Akshay will be working on a new piece of dance with South Asian dance artists exploring movement, text and singing as voice.

Anthony Lo-Giudice - a contemporary dance artist based in the North of England working across the UK and Europe. He currently works as a dance theatre choreographer, performer and also dance tutor.

Anthony and his collaborators are researching a new production called Ghosts of England (working title). They are currently experimenting with the concept of England as a confluent idea, analysing our complex relationships towards territorial imperative and the flux of national identity, told through music, movement, and theatre.

Brooke Milliner - six-time World Hip Hop Champion, known for his exceptional musicality, intricate choreography, and technical prowess, he challenges perceptions of Street Dance Styles through storytelling and digital media. With extensive experience in stage shows, TV, films, and commercials, including "Street Dance 3D" (2009) and the Old Jamaica commercial (2021), Brooke has earned numerous accolades, leading crews like Prototype and Plague to multiple world titles.

What’s Your Power? is a children’s show using dance to convey a crucial message about embracing diversity. Brooke initiated the concept through an R&D in Summer 2022, supported by Artists 4 Artists, DanceEast, The Place, and South East Dance. Now, through Choreodrome, he seeks to develop it into a touring production for 2025/26.

Dorine Mugisha - performer, instructor, and founder of Body Movement. Born in France and based between Scotland and Tanzania, she is passionate about seeing more representation of plus size bodies, nuanced stories of black bodies and themes around identity and belonging.

Dorine Mugisha has been developing her solo performance titled 'Asili' (meaning Origins in Swahili), delving into her multicultural upbringing, navigating the intricacies of adapting to diverse people, places, and institutions—a journey of self-discovery and acceptance. During the residency, she will be deep diving into the choreographic element of this piece, as well as character development work. Dorine will also create a high-quality documentation (e.g. documentary, blog post, podcasts) to share her research, supported by Higher Education Innovation Fund (HEIF), Research England.

Alberto Ruiz and Eva Recacha have been collaborating for over 10 years, putting at the centre of their choreographic work the relationship between movement, sound and text, creating a distinct dance theatre practice. Their work was twice in The Place Prize Finals, winning the Audience Prize on three occasions. More recently, their piece Because I Can was selected for Aerowaves Twenty23, touring both in the UK and Europe between 2022-2024.

Their research will explore how they make work, questioning established methodology and breaking apart the relationship between movement and sound to get to the core of the choreographic fabric, both structurally and emotionally.

Ekleido - a choreographic duo made up of Hannah Ekholm and Faye Stoeser with their work being performed in multiple venues and festivals across the UK including Glastonbury, Breakin’ Convention at Sadler’s Wells, Resolution Dance Festival and Latitude. They have both individually had extensive performing careers within the contemporary dance sector, commercial industry and underground battle scenes, often crossing paths with each other on projects including Rambert, BBC, Years and Years, and within The Ballroom (Vogue) Scene.

Inspired by the Rorschach inkblots, a personality test widely used in the 1960’s, they will explore themes of human perception creating live, moving adaptations of the symmetrical inkblots in an architecture of three bodies, working in collaboration with psychoanalyst Dr Molly MacDonald and composer Floating Points.

Isaac Ouro-Gnao - a Togolese-British multidisciplinary artist, somatic trauma therapist, mental health scholar-activist, and freelance journalist working across dance, theatre, film, essays, and poetry.

you're a man now, boy is a project by and for Black men (trans+ non-binary) with lived experiences of mental ill health. The R&D project will develop a unique choreographic language that integrates Hip Hop, West African & contemporary dance, magical realism & indigenous African spirituality to explore childhood adverse experience's impact on adult mental health and the role of the inner child in healing and recovery.

Izzy Brittain - a Yorkshire born and based interdisciplinary artist working across dance, poetry, story making, theatre and film. Projects include a diverse range of live/film commissions, performance making, published writing, creative direction, curation, and advocacy work.

The Smalls is an interdisciplinary arts project inviting children and their adults to explore ‘what’s underneath’, bringing the fascinating world of micro-bugs, soil animals and mesofauna to life. Izzy will also create high-quality documentation (e.g. documentary, blog post, podcasts) to share her research, supported by Higher Education Innovation Fund (HEIF), Research England.

Jackie Kibuka - a dancer, movement director, choreographer, teacher and actress with over 15 years’ experience in the UK street dance and Hip Hop theatre scene. She is an authentic and versatile mover in many styles including Waacking, Popping, Locking, House, Hip Hop, Contemporary and Commercial.

She will be working on a dance theatre piece inspired by the life of her paternal grandad, exploring the narrative of first-generation Uganda British on the journey of discovering legacy, heritage and their roots, The aim is to develop a family show that is educational for people to learn about and be inspired by a real and authentic positive African story.

Liam Francis - a dance artist/maker from Brighton, who performed works by internationally renowned choreographers including Bruce, Cherkoui, Cunningham, Duke, Eyal, McGregor, Motin, Shechter, Van Opstal, Vanderkeybus and Veldman. As a choreographer Liam has created work on Ballet Theater Trier, Rambert, SALLY dansgezelschap maastricht, Shechter2, Skånes Dansteater. He has also presented his own work in Brighton, Hannover, London, Massachusetts, New York, Oxford and Rotterdam.

Liam will explore what it takes for an individual to become part of a community, allowing feelings of isolation, threat, and competition to be replaced by trust, intimacy and friendship, with a soundscape, mixed live by Chloe Mason, created by capturing the sounds of the dancing bodies.

Rikkai Scott - Born and raised in Bermuda, a former dancer of Amsterdam based De Kiss Moves Fusion Dance Company and UK based Motionhouse. Rikkai formed Rhythmflow in 2016 and has worked in Tap, Hip Hop, Contemporary and Dance Circus.

The Bo Jangles is inspired by tap pioneers such as Bill Bojangles, Nicholas Brothers, Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire, Gregory Hines and more. The piece will be a success story of how tap dancers overcame their struggles in their time and continued with their passion and drive for dance and is getting expanded and developed for touring.

Shyam Dattani - a London-based mover and maker whose practice is grounded by strong technique, training and choreographic thinking, as well as trying to shift thinking regarding the innate gender roles within ‘Kathak’- the form he is trained in.

Dvihīna, Sanskrit for ‘devoid of gender’, is an ensemble South Asian dance exploration with diasporically-trained Kathak dance artists of diverse gender expression. Originally created and presented at Resolution 2023, Dattani will expand the work with a larger cast and develop the work for touring.

Solène Weinachter - a choreographer, performer and teacher based between Scotland and France, she has built long lasting creative relationship with Scottish Dance Theatre (Janet Smith & Joan Clevillé), Lost Dog (Ben Duke) and OD WORKS (Oona Doherty), and has been part of projects with Gecko, Vera Tussing and Rosalind Masson. Her first own solo work, AFTER ALL, is currently touring in Europe and the UK.

Her Choreodrome residency will be part of the initial research period of a new show looking at how the dedicated space of a theatre with all its artifices, suited for magic and illusion, can enhance a performance that talks about manufactured truth. In collaboration, with Jay Yule starting points are performative forms such as Drag King, illusion and ventriloquism to explore how we play with and displace the audience's sense of what they perceive to be 'true'.

Tom Cassani - a UK based performance maker working with choreography, magic and live art. His performances draw on an expanded approach to magic examining the nature of perception and truth. Tom has been selected as an Aerowaves Artist 2024 with his solo Iterations and he works internationally as a consultant and deception dramaturg for interdisciplinary artists.

His project examines the body as an unreliable measure of truth, exploring the hidden choreographies within virtuosic acts such as Hair Suspension and Sword Swallowing and how this might articulate the complex ideas and relationships we have to truth, authenticity, and facts.

More information about the artists at The Place can be found here: https://theplace.org.uk/choreodrome-artists-2024