Performing for Take That at the MTV awards brought Aicha her first professional job. The move to choreographer, a role mostly dominated by men, was not an easy one. She admits her introduction to the job was: “kind of crazy and a fluke really. My partner Paolo had another agency and the dancers were doing stuff for Kylie (Minogue) and Geri (Halliwell). Meanwhile, I was like: ok I actually need to eat…can I have a job in the office? One day somebody called, no one else was in and they needed a concept for Levi’s. So I sat there and wrote it and they were like, Ok you got the job.”

Levi’s then approached her to create concepts for their 150th Anniversary, staged in Berlin. A string of trade and fashion shows followed. Then came the Brit Awards and Kanye West. She explains: “Kanye said ‘We want models but they need to move, you’ve seen the Gold Digga video, this is what we want.’ Knowing the fashion thing, I knew I could get them to dance. So we had these tall leggy girls, (and) we did Kanye, the whole UK TV promotion and he loved it.”

US-based choreographer Fatima Robinson, who has worked with the likes of Snoop Dogg and Black Eyed Peas, is also a good friend and colleague of Aicha’s and has sourced her dancers for her when she has come to Europe on numerous occasions.

Starting AMCK was a chance for Aicha “to take control and put commercial dance and dancers forward in the way that they should be respected,” she insists passionately. “I want to be the Gucci of the dance world. I just want everything high quality and the dancers are the people who make the show work and look good. I want them to be respected like models and actors are because (after all) they’ve trained really hard.”

In times of a recession, the entertainment business can often be the first to suffer but people still want to be entertained so it means “I have to work a bit harder to make simple things look good!”

Aicha is proud to have been listed as one of Britain’s 100 Most influential Black People . “For someone to come from above and say, you know, what you’ve been doing is alright and we want to accolade that. It was absolutely magical.”

And what changes has she seen for young, black dancers? “There are more opportunities definitely. There’s not just one token black (girl). If you had four girl dancers you’d be lucky if you had one black girl, but she’d have a nice weave like Naomi (Campbell). There were no afros going on,” she says grinning whilst twisting a lock of her mane. “The girls used to cuss me at Pineapple, they’d be like go and relax your hair child… Now people want more of an ethnic mix and that’s a great thing. It’s not strange to have three or four black dancers in a group but before that didn’t happen.”

I draw her attention to the AMCK logo, a sheep with a crown. She explains that it represents a shepherd – the English translation for Pecoraro – the Italian surname of her business partner Paolo. “We’re also husband and wife and we have a son who’s five, so you know it’s a family run company. People ask: ‘who backs you?’ but no it’s (just) us, we’re doing this for ourselves… working really hard… for our family.”

Michelle Harris

Beyond The Ballroom, on Sunday 19th July @ Cargo in Shoreditch London was a tribute to underground UK jazz dance – a mainly working class movement that emerged from the suburban soul scene of the South and post-Blackpool Mecca club-land in the North. Catch a Vibe attended the event to find out how the scene made its mark.

Among the live artists were Dilanga performing Cuban street rumba and Mighty Jeddo providing post-millennium freedom jazz dance. Meanwhile, DJs Snowboy and Gilles Peterson took the audience further along the journey of jazz dance. Alongside the music was a book signing, record stalls, a sprung dance floor and the London premiere of Dick Jewell’s classic film The Jazz Room. While paying homage to the roots of the UK jazz dance scene, the event also looked towards the future.

Like the funky house kids of 2009 who deliver their dance moves on YouTube, UK jazz dancers honed their art in bedrooms, but tested it in battle on the dancefloor. It’s about a young black and white Britain, united by music and dance…

(c) Denise Arthur

Fukiko Takase, by Nuno Santos

Award-winning choreographer Henri Oguike and his successful dance company are celebrating ten years with a Spring 09 UK Anniversary Tour, showcasing some of its best works. Catch a Vibe caught up with the man himself during rehearsals at Greenwich Dance Agency.

You started the tour back in January, has it been a great run?
It’s been going OK. I haven’t been on tour as much, as changes for the future are happening now. I’m not doing the same company stuff next year, i.e. touring. There’s going to be a new management and some new members of the board – one or two key people are also leaving. But touring wise it’s been going well as far as I know. There have been good reviews and feedback, especially with this particular programme in retrospect of old pieces.

What has it been like to revisit earlier dance works? Have you had to make any significant changes choreographically?
I’ve tried to avoid fussing with it too much. There was a piece way back called Seen of Angels, danced to Handel’s Messiah. I originally made it on another company, a commission, but I decided to take it on myself. A little refurbishment, a little touch here and there and it ended up a whole inside out thing. I couldn’t actually even finish it then. I learnt my lesson, from that, you know, (to) leave some of the old stuff alone.

You’re half Nigerian and half Welsh. Do you think this is where your talent for musicality comes from?
I don’t know. It wasn’t like there was anything obvious in my background; I was a bit of a wanderer as a kid. My dad had the idea of starting a business in Nigeria. He took myself and my mother out there. Going to school and so on, I’ve just got memories of me wandering around, not really engaging with anything that was [formally] set up like music lessons or dance lessons. And then we moved again. I don’t think I’ve ever settled in one place, whether it be friends or family. It wasn’t until my late teens that I did dancing, music, enjoyed a bit of art in school.

You also work with some of the finest dancers in contemporary dance. Does this allow you great freedom as a choreographer?
There’s potentially freedom but because of the way we have to operate there’s a lot of restraint. To really get to know the company, to get to the core of it is really tough as an RFO company. At the same time that’s how I want to work, part RFO, touring the world but also as a project group, research and development – that hasn’t been built in so well. Therefore I can’t take advantage of the unique areas the dancers may bring.

You also run H2O your sister company, is it still involved in educational work?
It doesn’t really exist. It was an idea that initially started out as a youth group and then became an apprentice company, but again funding was difficult, the main company wasn’t really stable enough. Maybe it’s all to do with how good you are at raising funds. It’s something for the future. It’s alright trying to put out quality but some people seem to have that flair to attract the right funds, or have somebody within the organization who can do that. I need that now. It’s something I’m going to have to absorb more of, becoming a sort of artistic businessman without losing the integrity.

Producing two works a year for the company is a lot of work. How do you continue to be inspired to create? Is it through the music?
The music thing, that label, was something I was asked at college, The Place (London Contemporary Dance School) and then I was given money from the Robin Howard [Theatre] and Westminster. I thought ok let’s try and do something specific. Other pieces had a similar approach and I got labeled as the dance and music man. But I have very strong interests in other areas. I doodle with all sorts of creative software, film, image, sound. All those things interest me – the approach. Maybe I’ve never been organized enough to hone in and say this and that is exactly what I want to do, and bring it. I try things. So as far as what inspires, it comes from anywhere now.

Although you’re a black choreographer the company and your work have never been categorized as just “black dance”. Why do you think you’ve enjoyed such mainstream success in the contemporary dance scene?
I’ve not made any noise about it in that way. In Nigeria they’d make fun of me, I was the yellow pepper. And then here, when I first came there was some of the rougher names, but I didn’t get the meaning. Having been that wandering [boy], little things pulling you in different directions, I don’t think I paid that much attention. If that’s a good thing or not I don’t know. At this point in time I believe it was a good thing, as we try and teach children and new generations coming up about labeling. You can get tangled up politically with it, and so it’s really down to the individual, regardless of what is said out there.

And the next ten years? Where do you think you’ll be?
Maybe on a street corner asking for a pound. I don’t know, I’m trying to allow life and work, that relationship to chill out a little. It’s been ten years with a lot of change, a lot of attention to things that maybe distracted from life in general. I’m at a stage like a crossroads. (I) feel like I’ve been here for ages, just poised, either waiting for the wind to blow me over if I take a step or go with it. The wandering boy image. There’s uncertainty, moments of groundedness and confidence. [It’s] a bit mixed up.

Savion Glover by NiNa (c)

For his production, Bare Soundz, tap legend Savion Glover forgoes the familiar theatrical elements of narrative and music, and lets his feet do the talking. Performing eleven short pieces upon three wooden platforms, the minimalistic yet stylish backdrop perfectly illuminates Glover’s exuberant style.

Dancing with an energy that is boundless, and a flexibility and technical prowess that is otherworldly, Glover treats the audience to a virtuoso display of complex toe taps, stamps and hops. No part of the foot is excluded by this tap wizard in order to create a barrage of rhythms as diverse as hip-hop and Calypso.

Glover is joined by Marshall Davis Jr. and Maurice Chestnut, and together this relaxed trio are the epitome of cool. At one point Glover dances with a sweat towel in hand as if in mid rehearsal, rather than performing under the pressure of an expectant audience at Sadler’s Wells Theatre. This effortlessness is evident not least in Trading Places, where each dancer take turns in a Round Robin to tap out phrases on a single platform. As one performer leaves, the next swiftly picks up the rhythm. Never is there a dropped beat and the timing is impeccable.

At times the deluge of sound is overwhelming and one may be tempted to fall into a trance like state in order to process it all. But with a flourish into the air and a daring pointed toe balance, Glover always brings the audience back to the action.

A self-confessed hoofer since age 12, it is this revolutionary brand of street influenced rhythm tap – and regular appearances on Sesame Street – that  have made Glover  a household name in America. Long surpassing the likes of Fred Astaire and the Broadway tradition, for fans young and old this is fearless and edgy tap for the Millennium.

With an Olivier Award to its name, the Theatre Royal Stratford East production deserves its promotion where it comes off superbly on the large Barbican Theatre stage. The 30 plus company of dancers have room to move,. The action takes place throughout the set where the acoustics are clear as a bell and lighting is effectively used. Multimedia video projections even find their way into the show.

Moulding Robert Hamelin’s famous story into a modern-day parable of media-driven hysteria, hooded youths, criminal gangs and society’s decline works well. Into this environment steps the vigilante justice of the Pied Piper. But retelling the fable isn’t really the issue here. The voice of the piece is delivered through Michael ‘Mikey J’ Asante’s atmospheric music, the choreography of Kenrick “H2O” Sandy and the direction and set design of Ultz.

Their voices are expressive, innovative, in your face and versatile street dance routines – individual and group style – tell a tale of morality, violence, defiance and aggression.

The tale unfolds through set-piece synchronised routines. In a series of contemporary dance confrontations, the Pied Piper [a charismatic and powerfully built Kenrick Sandy] challenges his adversaries.

Each battle is a display of individual dance skills and co-ordinated choreography of passion, aggression, with fluid movement and backbreaking, gravity-defying body contortions. It’s mesmerising. The question is asked: “is this freestyle dance movement?”.   But it’s actually the adept, graceful and technical virtuosity of highly skilled and well-trained performers.  The next generation takes a bow  in a vibrant scene of pre and early teenage dancers.

This is an energetic showcase where the demands on the human body are pushed to the maximum. Over 90 minutes in seven chapters divided into fast paced scenes it’s a test that the 38-member cast pass with honours.

A powerful, defiant, and energetic piece of theatre.

Pic: Robert Day

Pied Piper – A Hip Hop Dance Revolution
@ Barbican, March 09
Boy Blue Entertainment
Choreography by Kenrick ‘H2O’ Sandy
Music by Michael ‘Mikey J’ Asante
Directed and designed by ULTZ
A Theatre Royal Stratford East Production