Tell us about your dance journey
I started dancing by accident really, in London. I was 11 years old and dance was offered as a physical education activity at my school, so we would play football, rugby (I was terrible at both!) and we would dance. I realised that dance was something I enjoyed much and an activity which came quite naturally to me. I had a background in karate and playing the violin, so dance was somehow very familiar because I had this sense of musicality, and my body was already quite strong and flexible from karate, so I loved dancing.
So I end up at the Rambert School of ballet and contemporary dance in London and my first engagement was with Matthew Bourne, I joined his company when I was 17 for the creation of his Carmen. After I went to the Gärtnerplatz Theater in Munich, where I danced for 3 years. Then I was in the Netherlands, with Introdans for a further 3 years, prior to spending the last 7 years of mycareer dancing with the Bern Ballet and Tanz Luzerner Theater in Switzerland. During that Swiss time I also startedto choreograph for other companies. Currently I am the resident choreographer of the NW Dance Project in PortlandOregon, USA. I co-founded my own company Cie La Ronde in Switzerland, and I am a guest freelance choreographer working for a multitude of companies globally.
What was your first approach to choreography?
I have been choreographing for as long as I have been dancing. I made my first small works at my local school when I was 11 or 12 years old.
I have always been in companies which had choreographic opportunities, so I really learned by doing.
Later when I was at Rambert, I was able to try out much more, and I created maybe around 10 pieces at the school, which was a wonderful way of learning by doing and evenfailing.
I guess my first early teenage works, at least in terms of aesthetic, were simply inspired by the choreographers I hadworked with and those styles that had shaped me as a dancer to that point, and bit by bit I grew by doing and finding my own voice.
I feel very fortunate that I was always in spaces which allowed opportunities to choreograph.
How do you get inspiration for your choreographies?
Inspiration comes from many different sources. It depends on the context of the work. If I am creating a narrative like "Carmen" then naturally the inspiration is coming from the adaptation of the story. I recently worked on Stravinsky's"Rite of spring", so of course the music and that original work was a great anchor point.
Inspiration can come from anywhere - walking on the street, observing humans. I get inspired by things surrounding me, by the world, by the dancers in front of me in the studio.
Since I create rather a lot of work, I enjoy challenging myself in different ways and not always doing the same thing. I try to change it up conceptually each time, though naturally the movement vocabulary is coming from the same source so there is a ‘signature’.
So my source of inspiration comes from anywhere and everywhere, but certainly because I was a violinist before a dancer, music and musicality are certainly an enormous source of inspiration.
I really like dissecting complex musicality and I like seen the music on dancers.
Tell us more about Cie. La Ronde
Cie La Ronde was born in 2020, during the pandemic, and was conceived by myself and Cathy Marston.
We wanted to create a company which sits between theindependent free scene and the institutions, and gather a group of dancers that are rarely seen sharing the same stage, from former classical dancers together with young people fresh from school, together with contemporary dancers from the free scene and hip hop dancers.
Unique to CLR is that the 3 or 4 diverse choreographers work in close collaboration to develop the methods and content of the evening together, as well as assist one another both conceptually and choreographically throughout the process. A shared desire exists to develop 'new tools' by supporting, sharing and learning from one another’s methods and approach, encouraging risk-taking and stepping outside of habitual norms and comfort zones.
Cathy is now directing Zurich Ballet and I am finishing up our current production ‘4xRousseau’ before taking a break from the company.
Tell us more about your position as resident choreographer for NW Dance Project
In 2010, Sarah Slipper, AD of the NW Dance project, invited me to create a work for the company. This was my first ever commission and the work won two awards, one at Sadler’s Wells in London and the other won the public prize of the Hannover competition. And it started a fruitfulrelationship between us, and 14 years later I am still here and recently premiered my 13th creation for the company. In 2015 I was appointed resident choreographer and I am about to enter my 10th season,
Do you have a choreography you are proud of?
That's a tough question! I guess the first one, just because it was so special. "State of matter" - it lived in a way that I could not have anticipated. It had a success with the recognition of the awards, which was unexpected and a lovely surprise. I love that many years later it continues to live, we just premiered it again this season with Sacramento Ballet. I love to see this work on many different types of dancers.
As a choreographer you do lots of guesting, how does it feel that many companies want to have your work?
It a wonderful honour. It's also not something that happenedovernight, it's something that has been born out of years of work, a lot of networking, a lot of grafting, gaining experiences.
I think I have done the long and slow route, some people become famous overnight via instagram, but it's a different generation and it is what it is.
My journey was really the old fashion route, I was a dancer and I began choreographing, and then slowly made my way through this wonderful world, and I continue to enjoy meeting new companies, new dancers all the time.
I feel fortunate that I get to enjoy doing my hobby, because I really do love this.
Tell us about your latest creation
I just premiered my newest work "13" for NW Dance Project. I am using wonderful music from Davidson Jaconello and it is a full company work.
It's an explosive and dynamic tour de force. I enjoy working with these dancers here in Portland, especially because Ihave done so many works here. I feel I can go very far with them. wanted really to push the boundaries of limits, borders and technical possibilities. It's a piece of limits. I wanted to create a world in a world inspired by the idea of how our mind fills in the blanks when we don’t have the complete picture. How when our stories are unfinished, or end abruptly… how our mind works to imagine what would have, and could have, been. It was also very influenced by the soundscape and these wonderful dancers in front of me.This particular work is a bit of a shift, my last here in Portland was "Rite of spring", so I wanted to do something little different to follow.
Tell us about your next projects
Next season I have new creations with Zurich Ballet Junior, Staatstheater Augsburg, and
NW Dance Project will have a premiere of a new work and as well as a revival of "Yidam" an older work of mine.
"Bolero", an existing work, will premiere in Turin, Italy and also in Innsbruck.
In Theater Ulm, they will take "Carmen" into their repertoire and in Bremerhaven they will also acquire an existing work of mine Le Fil Rouge.
The Ballet Jazz in Montreal will be touring "Dance Me" and I will create a new work for the Tanz Akademie Zurich. There are also further works in the pipeline in Australia for 2026.
Do you have any advise for aspiring young choreographers?
Don't be afraid to fail. I think in a world of instagram‘perfection’, where few second clips that have been recorded 20 times to look perfect, it can be hard to feel validated as an artist. That’s not real.
My advice is not to be afraid to test, to try to get as much out there, to try do as much as you can, with friends in the studio. Just begin somehow and learn by doing!
Find out who you are through your work in the studio, discover your vocabulary, body language, what you want to say and how you want to say it.
Experiment with lighting, figure out how to light your work. Discover how to network, that's very important.
Remind yourselves it's a very very small industry and be kind and humble.
Learn how to articulate your work through words because communication and reaching out to companies is key part of getting your work out there… oh… and enjoy!!