Each year, NSCD commissions a breadth of talented artists to collaborate with our students for their end of year Graduation performances.
This year’s choreographers, including invited guests and NSCD staff, are all passionate about developing the next generation of dancers and bring a different perspective. In working with them, our students will not only benefit from their technical expertise but also gain valuable insights into the professional world of dance.
This year, students on undergraduate courses will be working with:
CertHE – IN FOCUS (27 & 28 June)
BA – FUTURE NOW (3-6 July)
Read more below to find out more about them.
See the results of their collaborations in our end of year performances this summer at Riley Theatre.
Book nowFounded in 2001, Avant Garde Dance Company is at the forefront of London’s innovative hip-hop / contemporary dance scene.
The company’s dynamic performances explore a myriad of styles, themes and media, whilst embracing different genres and forms of music, dance, literature, circus and digital work.
Avant Garde Dance have performed in the UK and internationally at venues and festivals including The Place, Breakin’ Convention, Sadler’s Wells, Pavilion Dance, Southbank Centre, The Barbican, DanceXchange, Greenwich Dance, Latitude Festival, British Dance Edition, Greenwich & Docklands International Festival, Brighton Dome, East London Dance at Stratford Circus, Barcelona Festival and Madison Square Gardens, New York.
Before joining the staff team at NSCD, Bruce Wong worked with City Contemporary Dance Company (CCDC) in Hong Kong for 22 years, as a dancer, choreographer and rehearsal director. Alongside dancing in numerous works with CCDC, Bruce also presented his own choreographic work with the company, including Dress Me Down in Strip Teaser 2012, Re/dis-connect in It’s My Turn 2013, How to become… in Eureka 2015, Why not kill us all? 2017, Rainbow House (dance video) 2020 and Listen Carefully in Days are Numbered 2021. In 2022, Bruce worked as a movement coach for Cantonese chamber opera KungFood. Bruce has also worked as a choreographer for Wild the Musical for the City Chamber Orchestra of Hong Kong.
Born in Albania and now based in London, Erion Kruja is a versatile Choreographer and Director known for his diverse portfolio of international work. He creates dance performances across various styles – from dance theatre to immersive shows to purely physical contemporary dance. His works are characterised by their authenticity, boldness and ability to push boundaries.
Erion was a long-standing member of Hofesh Shechter Company and is often commissioned to adapt Schechter’s work for different audiences around the world. For FUTURE NOW, Erion will work with our students to restage an excerpt from Shechter’s Grand Finale.
Joseph Toonga makes and performs dance productions embedded in hip-hop and inspired by real-life stories. His craftsmanship and signature choreographic style challenges conventions commonly used in hip-hop dance and shifts audience perceptions by addressing racial stigmas and societal stereotypes.
Toonga was appointed Royal Ballet’s Choreographic Residency artist for 2023/24. In Autumn 2021, he was Movement Director for Fair Play, a Bush Theatre production directed by Ella Road. Other commissions and achievements to date include working with The Royal Ballet School, English National Ballet School, DanceEast (where he is Associate Artist), Secret Cinema (in collaboration for the premiere of Les Miserables), Boston Conservatoire of Dance, Middlesex University, Codarts University of the Arts, Rotterdam, National Youth Ballet/Bundesjugendballett, Richard Alston Dance Company, Junior Ballet Madrid (Elephant in the Black Box), and East Wall (with Hofesh Shechter). He was also awarded the Best Choreography Award at New York’s Reverb Dance Festival.
Alongside extensive teaching and independent commissions, Joseph runs his dance company Just Us Dance Theatre, a collective founded in 2007 with whom he has established an international Artist Development Programme in Brazil and the UK’s first annually running hip hop Apprenticeship company. He is also co-founder of artist-led hip hop initiative Artists4Artists.
Fernanda Prata is an interdisciplinary artist who has worked across theatre and dance for over 20 years. She has collaborated with many Brazilian and UK companies – her main collaboration being with the immersive theatre company Punchdrunk, working as Assistant Director and Performer for over 14 years, creating and performing in shows including Faust, Masque of Red Death, Duchess of Malfi, Sleep no More and The Drowned Man.
She has also collaborated with Jasmin Vardimon, Protein Dance, Vincent Dance Theatre, Stan Won’t Dance, and Theatre Rites.
Theatre works include Midsummer Night’s Dream for The Globe Theatre, directed by Lucy Bailey; Every Good Boy Deserves Favour for the London National Theatre, directed by Tom Morris; and The Beggars Opera for Regents Park Theatre, directed by Lucy Bailey. Selected choreographic works include Kroppen Min for Stavanger University, Nos commissioned by Horniman Museum and Gardens, Midsummers Night Dream for Karamel Club Theatre in London, An Open Book for Northern School of Contemporary Dance and Urinetown for Mountview Academy directed by Josh Seymour.
Fernanda joined NSCD in 2017 as a lecturer in performance.
