Henri Oguike Dance Company is a contemporary dance company based in London and led by gifted Nigerian-Welsh choreographer Henri Oguike.
Founded in Autumn 1999, Henri Oguike Dance Company marked its 10th anniversary in 2009 with a retrospective programme celebrating Oguike’s defining choreography and visceral musicality. The last decade has seen the Company flourish and carve out a place for itself at the heart of the British contemporary dance scene while continuing to make advances in the international arena. Along the way, the Company has won many plaudits, most notably the award for ‘Outstanding Repertoire (Modern)’ from the Critics’ Circle National Dance Awards (2007).
Since the Company’s inception, Oguike has worked at a blistering pace — creating two new works a year for the Company and maintaining a rotating repertory of multiple bills. To add to this tally, he has amassed nearly 40 independent commissions.
Henri Oguike Dance Company tours extensively across the UK and abroad and delivers a comprehensive schedule of education/outreach projects. The Company has performed at major festivals of both dance and music including the Sintra Festival (Portugal), Dance Europa (Israel), Holland Dance Festival (Netherlands), Monaco Dance Forum (Monte Carlo) and the 75th Anniversary Season of Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival (USA). Other international engagements have taken the Company to countries including Austria, China, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Serbia, Spain, and Syria.
There have also been some major collaborations in the Company's history - with the Britten Sinfonia which premièred at St Edmundsbury Cathedral, Bury St Edmunds (2005) and with the Portuguese Orquestra do Algarve which premièred at London's Southbank Centre (2008).
Yaron Abulafia Lighting Designer
For the past thirteen years, Yaron Abulafia has designed lighting for theatre and dance performances, installations, concerts and television shows internationally. Now resident in the Netherlands, he is working towards a PhD at Rijks University of Groningen, the Netherlands. The research, which incorporates both theory and practice, deals with The Poetics of Light in Contemporary Theatre. For one of his recent light designs in theatre (Peer Gynt, Romania, 2008) he won the first prize of light design supported by Philips. He holds a Masters degree (MFA) in Scenography from the Frank Mohr Instituut in Groningen and BA in theatre studies (Design track) from Tel-Aviv University in Israel. His passion for light design developed after six years of painting and sculpture studies in Israel (also at Tel-Aviv museum for the arts); a visual influence which is often distinguished in the characteristics of his designs. In 2009, Yaron collaborated with Henri on his first work for Rambert Dance Company, Tread Softly.
Asalia Khadjé Costume Designer
Asalia finished her education in Fashion and Clothing; Academy the Couture and Institute Avantgarde in the Netherlands. She worked at Netherlands Dance Theatre (NDT) from 1989 until 2005, where she worked on various productions by renowned choreographers such as Jiri Kylian, William Forsythe, Hans van Manen, Mats Ek and Ohad Naharin. In 1992, she started designing costumes for several choreographers such as Martino Muller, Gideon Obarzanek and John Inger. While at NDT she also worked as a freelance designer for young and upcoming choreographers giving them an opportunity to enhance their production with professionally designed costumes. Together with experienced choreographers, she has now designed costumes for more than 90 productions. Since 2005, she started her own business which concentrates on designing and realising costumes for dance and theatre, where she collaborates with several companies and festivals. At the Holland Dance Festival in 2005, she met Henri Oguike. Since then she has collaborated with HODC designing costumes for Expression Lines, How I Look, Little Red, Green in Blue, Touching All and All Around. In 2009, she collaborated with Henri on his first work for Rambert Dance Company, Tread Softly.
Stephanie Hodgson Dancer
Stephanie trained at the Ballet Academy in Gothenburg, Sweden, studying ballet, jazz, contemporary, tap and composition from 2004 - 2007. Here she choreographed her first work during her final year. Following a season performing at Euro Disney, Paris, in 2008 Stephanie joined Transitions Dance Company, celebrating its 25th year, and worked with choreographers such as Cristian Duarte, Danyel Larrieu and Cheng Tsung-Lung. The production won the Guest Award 2009 at the ITS Festival in Amsterdam. During 2009/10 Stephanie performed in the musical Guys & Dolls at the Gothenburg Opera House, Sweden. There she also appeared in a dance film at Gothenburg's Short Film Festival at Atalante, Gothenburg. Stephanie joined HODC in May 2010.
Anh Nguyen Rehearsal Director / Co-Choreographer (Butterfly Dreaming) / Dancer
Anh trained at the Vietnamese Dance College, and won full scholarship to the Hong Kong Academy. He has worked with the Vietnamese Opera Theatre, Hong Kong/New York Dance Company, Les Ballets Persans, Wayne McGregor-Random Dance and Phoenix Dance Theatre. He won the New British Choreography Bonnie Bird Award (2005) as well as winning ‘Outstanding Male Artist' - Critics' Circle National Dance Awards (2008). Anh collaborated with LIU QI of Quang Dong Modern Dance for DANCE NOW at Sadler's Wells (2008) and received a commission as part of the 25th anniversary of Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts (2010). His new works, Footprints, Motherland and full length work Minus received high acclaim in Vietnam. He also assisted on Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Anh teaches widely in the UK and internationally and joined HODC as Rehearsal Director/Dancer in 2010, and most recently co-choreographed Butterfly Dreaming with Henri Oguike.
Josef Perou Dancer
Born in Sussex, Josef trained at Laban and at Central School of Ballet, graduating in 2008. Whilst in his final year he worked with Will Tuckett and performed in Pinocchio and Faeries, both for ROH2. He toured with Ballet Central '08, performing repertoire by Frederick Ashton, Matthew Bourne and Russell Maliphant and new works by Sara Matthews, Phil Aiden and Christopher Hampson. He toured with Bare Bones in the Spring of 2009, performing work by Rui Horta, David Massingham and Garry Stewart and in the autumn of that year joined Phoenix Dance Theatre under the direction of Sharon Watson to perform in the Ignite Tour where he created and performed work by Douglas Thorpe, Sharon Watson and Darshan Singh Bhuller. He joined HODC in May 2010.
Elena Zaino Dancer
Born in Italy, Elena started her training in Ballet and Contemporary dance in Turin. She then moved to the UK to continue her training at London Contemporary Dance School and Northern School of Contemporary Dance. In 2007 she joined Verve Graduate Dance Company where she performed works by Hofesh Shechter, Rafael Bonachela, Kim Brandstrup, Fin Walker, Shobana Jeyasingh and Glen Wilkinson. Elena joined Ace Dance and Music for the productions Skin and Switch, where she worked with Vincent Mantsoe, Akiko Kitamura, Douglas Thorpe and Andile Sotiya. She also worked on a project with Tom Dale in 2009. Elena participated in HODC's research and development period in 2009 and also assisted Henri Oguike with Da Gamba, a commission for Ballet Black. She joined HODC in spring 2010.
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