ANTHONY MISSEN
Anthony received formal training at the Northern School of Contemporary Dance and went onto dance with companies including Scottish Dance Theatre, Mad Dogs Dance Theatre, Cie. Willi Dorner (Vienna) and CassaniDance, and choreographers including Rui Horta, Didi Veldman and Liv Lorent. As an actor, Anthony played the lead role in the 2006 production of Monkey, a collaboration between Dundee Rep Theatre Ensemble and SDT, and played several roles in the 2007 National Theatre of Scotland production of Peer Gynt. He was Movement Director for Dundee Reps 2007 production of Playhouse Creatures and their 2008 production of Romeo and Juliet. He has taught in most major British Contemporary Dance institutions, to several Professional dance companies and teaches freelance in France, Germany and Austria. He has led many Choreographic and skills-based Residencies. Recent Choreographic works include Second Grace for Scottish Dance Theatre and February 10th for SSCD.
www.companychameleon.com
CLARA BARBERA
Clara studied in the Centro Valenciano de Danza Mari Cruz Alcalá before joining English National Ballet School in 1995. After her graduation, she joined English National Ballet in 1997, where she became a Soloist. Her classical repertoire includes soloist roles in all the major classical ballets as well as in George Balanchine's "Apollo" and Kenneth MacMillan's "The Rite of Spring". Clara joined Rambert Dance Company in August 2004 where she had the privilege of working with choreographers such as Wayne McGregor, Rafael Bonachela, Michael Clark, Itzik Gallili, Siobhan Davies and Mark Baldwin amongst many others. In 2007, she was nominated by the National Critic's Circle as Spotlight Female Artist (Modern).
Clara started choreographing whilst in English National Ballet and has created pieces for both companies' workshops as well as performing as a guest artist in various galas and festivals, including Gala IV: Premi Dansa Valencia (Valencia, 2008), 10 Años Solos (Valencia, 2008), Día Internacional de la Danza (Madrid 2009) Begoña Cao and Friends (London, 2009), Festival Internacional de Benicassim (Castellon, 2009) and Festival Trayectos (Zaragoza, 2010).
Clara left Rambert in May 2009 and since then she has freelanced as both dancer - Kim Brandstrup's "Goldberg Variations" alongside Tamara Rojo and other artists from The Royal Ballet; and Christine Cloux's "Bellas Durmientes" (based in Spain) - and choreographer - recently collaborating with Music Director and Composer Josep Vicent.
Clara has also started producing and curating the choreographic series WORK (WORK1-Valencia, December 2009 and WORK2-Santander, August 2010) featuring short works of some of the most talented young UK based choreographers of the moment.
www.clarabarbera.com
GEMMA NIXON
After training at The Arts Educational School (Tring), Gemma joined the National Youth Dance Company under the direction of John Chesworth before moving to New York to undertake a work/study programme. On returning to the UK she joined Scottish Dance Theatre, under the direction of Janet Smith, where she created new works with choreographers including Rui Horta, Didi Veldman and Liv Lorent amongst others. As an actor Gemma played the role Sandy in Monkey, a collaboration between Dundee Rep Ensemble and SDT.
Gemma went on to join Rambert Dance Company in 2006 where she danced and created several main roles with various choreographers including the Mother in Christopher Bruces's “Hush” and Blanch De Bois in Javier De Frutos's “Elysian Fields”.
In October 2012 Gemma toured the USA with the Russell Maliphant Company performing “Afterlight".
Gemma joined Company Chameleon in November 2012.
In 2009 Gemma began a choreographic collaboration with Jonathan Goddard (Goddard Nixon). Their work has toured in the UK, Europe and India.
www.goddardnixon.com
PATRICIA OKENWA
Patricia is originally from Germany and has been a dancer with Rambert Dance Company since 2004. She has been creating work for the companies’ season of new Choreography on four occasions as well as presenting work at The Place, at the artist platform Work in Spain and in collaboration with the Architecture Associations’ Interprofessional Studio.
Since 2009 she is part of the artists collective New Movement, who aim to create new and unusual challenges for their work by sourcing non traditional performance and work spaces and collaboration.
In her past projects Patricia has collaborated with Composers Gabriel Prokofiev, Troy Banarzi, rock band Big Linda and producer/musician team Geoff Holroyde, Patrick Murdoch and James Holroyde, as well as designers Georg Meyer-Wiel and Hetta Johnson.
During her time as a dancer with Rambert Patricia has experienced creation and recreations with the range of Choreographers that make up the company repertoire.
Before joining Rambert Patricia worked as a dancer for theensemblegroup, Arc Dance Company, Rafael Bonachela, Andile Sotiya, Emilyn Claid and Stephanie Schober and taught at the Rambert School and Urdang Academy.
She trained at the John Neumeier School of the Hamburg Ballet and the Rambert School where she started choreographing for school shows and had a first taste of collaboration with students of St Martin’s School of Art on their Design for Dance Program for the Cochrane Theatre. After graduating she was sponsored to travel to New York to receive further training at the Ailey School and Merce Cunningham Studios
www.patriciaokenwa.com
ROBIN GLADWIN
Born in Solihull, Robin trained at The Hammond School of Dance and Central School of Ballet, touring with Ballet Central in his final year before joining Rambert in 2001. Highlights for Robin have included working with and performing in pieces by Wayne McGregor (PreSentient), Jiri Kylian (Symphony of Psalms), Merce Cunningham (Ground Level Overlay), Fin Walker (Reflections), Michael Clark (Swamp), Siobhan Davies (The Art of Touch), and Christopher Bruce (Ghost Dances, Swansong and Hush). Aletta Collins created the central role in bloom on Robin, and he also created a featured role in Darshan Singh Bhuller's Stand and Stare.
ALEX WHITLEY
Born in Penrith, U.K. Alex trained at the Royal Ballet School. He joined Birmingham Royal Ballet in 2000, promoted to first artist in 2002. His repertoire included Widow Simone in La Fille Mal Gardee, Kangaroo Rat in Still Life at the Penguin Café and Seminarian in David Bintley's Carmina Burana. He choreographed for two of BRB's workshop seasons.
Alexander joined Rambert Dance Company in August 2004 and has worked with choreographers such as Darshan Singh Buller, Wayne McGregor, Rafael Bonachela, Christopher Bruce, Javier de Frutos, Siobhan Davies, Garry Stewart, Karole Armitage and Michael Clark. Alexander received a nomination for the Spotlight Award in the 2008 Critics' Circle Awards. In 2010 he joined Sydney Dance Company for six months and has recently joined Wayne McGregor | Random Dance.
Alexander has choreographed five pieces for Rambert Seasons of New Choreography. From Two to Two Ones (2005), Tipping Point (2006), Solo? (2007), an extended version of Solo? (2008) and Iatrogenesis (2009). In 2008 Solo? was taken into Rambert's repertoire. He has also shown work at the Royal Opera House’s ‘Summer Collection’ programme – 2009.
Alexander has also choreographed for a Discovery Channel film, directed by Tim Meara and a short film made with London film collective DuckEye. In summer 2008, Alexander joined Michael Clark Company as a guest artist for its New York tour.
www.alexanderwhitley.com
JONATHAN GODDARD
Jonathan grew up in Hastings and trained at the Rambert School. In 1999 he joined Scottish Dance Theatre under the artistic direction of Janet Smith. In 2002 he became a member of the Richard Alston Dance Company, where he danced for Robert Cohan in a revival of his 1969 duet Eclipse for the choreographers 80th birthday celebration, a revival of The Swan for Siobhan Davies at the BBC Gala in memory of Sir John Drummond and with English National Ballet in their 2005 production of Romeo and Juliet. Jonathan joined Rambert Dance Company in 2008.
In 2007 Jonathan was the first contemporary dancer to be nominated in the dance category of the South Bank Show / Times Newspaper Breakthrough Award, in 2008 he was nominated for an Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in Dance and went on to become the first contemporary dancer to win the Critics Circle National Dance Award for Best Male Dancer.
Currently he is working with the England's main youth dance agencies to bring his DanceSpinner project into UK schools and has just received his own entry in the Oxford Dictionary of Dance. In 2011 Jonathan was nominated again at the Critics' Circle Awards for Best Male Dancer.
www.jonathangoddard.com
www.goddardnixon.com
JOE WALKLING
Joe trained at the London Contemporary Dance School, performing works by Jírí Kylián, Jeremy James and Kim Brandstrup. Upon graduating in 2005, Joe created and toured new works by Wayne McGregor, Frédéric Flamand and Angelin Preljocaj as well as guest dancing with The Forsythe Company on the production of Human Writes by William Forsythe. He completed his MA in Dance and the Virtual Image at the Palucca Schule, Dresden before returning to London in 2007 to begin work with Tom Dale Company on RISE. He joined Matthew Bourne's New Adventures in 2008 as an original cast member of Dorian Gray for the 2008 and 2009 tours, for the 2010/11 tour of Cinderella and the 2012 tour of Early Adventures. His own choreographic work has led him to become a guest artist with Cross Connection Ballet in Copenhagen and in 2009 he became a founding member of the New Movement Collective.
He has recently appeared in Arthur Pita's Olivier nominated The Metamorphosis at The Linbury Studio Theatre, Royal Opera House and The Death of Klinghoffer directed by Tom Morris.
Joe is currently working on bringing his DanceSpinner project (dancespinner.com) into UK Schools and continuing his own business as a web and graphic designer.
www.joewalkling.com
RENAUD WISER
Renaud was born in Switzerland and trained at the School of Dance in Geneva.
After dancing for Ballet du Grand Théâtre de Genève he joined the National Ballet of Marseille in France, then went on to dance with Gothenburg Ballet, before joining Rambert in 2004 and in 2009 moved to the Bonachela Dance Company.
Renaud choreographed At the Border of You for Resolution! 2006 at The Place.. He has also taken photographs for Rambert Dance Company and London Musici that have been published in Dance Europe, The Scotsman, Time Out and have been regularly featured in Rambert brochures and programs.
www.renaudwiser.com
MALGORZATA DZIERZON
Malgorzata was born in Gliwice, Poland. After graduating from National Ballet School in Bytom she worked with Malaika Kusumi in Frankfurt, Germany.
From 1997-2000 she danced with Royal Danish Ballet performing full length classical productions as well as works by Balanchine, Neumeier and Bejart. From 2000-2002 she worked with Peter Schaufuss Ballet and Singapore Dance Theatre, before joining Sweden's Gothenburg Ballet where she performed works by Javier de Frutos, Nacho Duato,, Nicolo Fonte, Itzik Galili and Meryl Tankard.
Since joining Rambert Dance Company in 2006 she has created roles in works by Karol Armitage, Garry Stewart, Sue Davis, Henry Oguike and the main duet in Doug Varone's "Scribblings", among others.
Since coming to England Malgorzata has also appeared with Random Dance Company in Wayne MacGregor’s “Eraser” and alongside the Ballet Boyz in Chistopher Wheeldon’s “Mesmerics”.
She received nominations for the Spotlight Award in the 2008 and an Outstanding Performance in 2009 British Critics’ Circle Award.
www.malgorzatadzierzon.com
KEVIN TURNER
Kevin studied formally at the Northern School of Contemporary Dance where he gained his first class degree. His professional engagements include working with Rambert Dance Company, Scottish Dance Theatre, Phoenix Dance Theatre, Cassanidance, Rubberbandancegroup (Canada) Henri Oguike Dance Company, Company Decalage, Mad dogs Dance Theatre and Roda. In the summer of 2007 Kevin was awarded a scholarship for the prestigious Danceweb scholarship under the framework of Impuztanz Vienna. Kevin has worked in collaboration with Gansango in Seattle U.S.A , Crossfade in Budapest Hungary and Navala Chaudhari in London. He has taught in most major British Contemporary dance institutions, and has taught in Canada, the USA, Spain, Hungary and the Caribbean.
www.companychameleon.com