Victoria Igbokwe
Victoria is a dancer, choreographer, project manager and Nike Athlete. Her work in Contemporary and Street dance has been performed at Sadler’s Wells, Stratford Circus, The Royal Festival Hall and the Peacock Theatre; aired on Channel 4, BBC1 & 2 and Pop World. She has created work for Impact Dance, East London Dance, Nike UK/Europe, EMI Records and D-physics Choreographic Collective, of which she is a founding member.
She has worked with artists including Jeanefer Jean Charles (Big Dance 2006), Akosua Boakye, Hakeem Onibudo and Kate Mummery. Vicki is also Creative Projects Manager at East London Dance.
Victoria will use the fellowship to broaden and further develop her skills as a choreographer. She currently creates works drawing from Contemporary and Street Dance and wants to integrate elements of House Dance into her choreography. She will travel to New York to work with House Dance International.
www.uchennadance.co.uk
Denise Rowe
Denise Rowe is a movement artist, choreographer, dancer, musician and creative producer drawing primarily from traditional and contemporary pan-African dance forms and non-stylised/environmental movement. Her work emerges from a creative movement practice and an intimacy with body, landscape and rhythm.
Director of Tolo Ko Tolo Dance Company, Denise Rowe also performs with Spirit Talk Mbira, The Ombiviolum Orkestra and works as a solo artist on various cross-genre collaborative projects integrating dance, music, performance art, digital media, visual art, poetry and installation including the dance films Erw Dinmael and On an Incoming Tide and the movement pieces Obey the Wind and She Who Walks. In 2010 Denise was commissioned to create a site-specific performance for ADADs Re:Generations conference at London Metropolitan University.
Denise has trained in African dance in the UK, Ghana, Gambia, Senegal, Zimbabwe and with the Baka hunter gatherers in the Cameroonian rainforest. In 2006 Denise completed contemporary dance training. She is a student of Aikido and Shiatsu and has recently completed Helen Poynor’s Walk of Life movement training in non-stylized and environmental movement. Denise has over twelve years experience of leading dance and movement workshops in schools, colleges, universities, dance companies and community settings around the world. She runs an extensive programme of workshops, classes and retreats including her annual Foot to Earth Dance Camp and the Earth Dances workshop programme. Denise teaches regularly at the Tribe of Doris intercultural summer school, The University of Plymouth, Falmouth University, The Mbira Academy and in 2011 completed an intensive choreographic project in Coventry University. With her Trailblazers fellowship in 2004/5, Denise consolidated her vocabulary and deepened her connection with African dance by training in Cameroon and Senegal. Using this experience and her contemporary dance training as a foundation Denise developed Tolo Ko Tolo as a dance company creating works which fusing these movement styles and speaking directly from the heart to the heart. Denise’s project for Trailblazers Champions is called ‘She Who Walks’, a multi-genre performance project exploring themes of women, land and ancestry. The outcomes included site-specific promenade performances, a studio sharing, public workshops and a summer school exploring the relationship between pan-African dance aesthetics and environmental movement.
The next stage of She Who Walks is a performance that integrates movement, live music, spoken word, film and installation. This work is being premiered at The Place as part of ADAD’s Exposure Showcase and is available to tour. Denise has also created a sister project called ‘Dolls’, in honour and remembrance of the women (and some men) persecuted for their embodied relationship with the land during the Middle Ages.
www.earthdances.co.uk | www.ombiviolum.com
