Uchenna
Uchenna

Empowering, educating and entertaining through dance

podcast featuring a conversation with Vicki Igbokwe from Uchenna Dance – Empowering, educating and entertaining through dance.

“I don’t feel like you need to have a PHD in dance to understand my work… inclusive, accessible, art, entertaining. It’s all of those things… I want you to have fun if you come and experience a show or a workshop we’re putting on… if we’re not having fun what’s the point.”

Vicki Igbokwe is the Creative Director and Choreographer of Uchenna Dance.

She works to empower, entertain and educate through dance theatre production experiences, coaching, dance based empowerment workshops and teaching in further and higher education.

The daughter of a Barrister and Labour Councillor Vicki was raised in a Nigerian household where dance was part of her upbringing. Aged 14 Vicki became a carer for her mother and younger sisters and dance became her escape. Over the following years Vicki turned this escape into a career which has so far spanned becoming a sponsored dance athlete with Nike, setting up and growing Uchenna Dance, choreographing for the opening and closing ceremonies of two Olympic Games and creating commissions for several prestigious dance organisations in the UK.

In this wide ranging conversation the Creative Practice podcast covers:

  • The importance of accessibility for audiences
  • Dance as an expression of joy
  • The power of a teacher allowing students to just be, accepting mistakes and highlighting improvement
  • Learning through doing what’s necessary
  • The value of having someone who believes in you
  • Training Vs Talent
  • Personal challenges informing professional practice
  • A brief history of House Music
  • Being baptised on the dance floor
  • Dance as a tool for empowering, educating and entertaining
  • Working on the mass movement at the London 2012 Olympic Games
  • The importance of taking risks and defining the worst that can happen
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