Nathan Geering is a dance artist and hip hop representative for Jonzi D’s Breakin’ Convention in Sheffield who enjoys collaborating with artists from different dance genres enabling him to creatively explore dance styles that feed back into his own movement vocabulary. From the beginning of his training over eight years ago when he travelled to America, China and Korea where he worked extensively with former b-boy champions learning their methodology, which gave him an insight and opportunity to experience how artists from different cultures create, learn and are motivated by their artistic vision, he has continued to be open to other cultures that enrich his work and that of his multicultural dance company called Rationale.

Nathan has been drawn to work with artists from a variety of backgrounds in the UK and Africa and is currently working on a Cultural Olympiad project entitled Bright in your Corner . A musical dance theatre piece Bright in your Corner will premier in Derbyshire, in September. Featuring a group of South African artists called Usutho from Mamelodi a township outside of Pretoria, along side Derbyshire based artists, Bright in your Corner uses a mixture of dance styles including Contemporary, African, Hip Hop and Kathak to explore the themes of ‘international understanding and shared humanity’. This artistic exchange has fuelled a desire in Geering to travel to South Africa to become immersed in the culture and experience the environment that Ushuto live and create in and, in return, share his skills and love of hip hop within the South African community. For Geering, travelling and experience of other cultures are a vital part of his artistic vision. He believes that it is important for artists of the African diaspora to travel and cultivate artistic understanding about their heritage and their creative development.

Collaboration within the African diaspora and beyond produces choreographic avenues and evolution of dance styles. By soaking up culture and travel through artist exchange we break down stereotype and definition about who we are and the work that we are trying to express. Things that we take for granted are tools that can be shared in exchange for learning about the essence of movement and about the African dance aesthetic. It is as Geering says about an “experience that becomes a part of me”.