Class with Kerry Nicholls

Kerry Nicholls has taught and performed extensively for numerous dance companies and institutions throughout Europe and worldwide, and her experience spans a diverse dance practice spectrum.

Regularly teaching for Wayne McGregor | Random Dance, DV8 and New Adventures companies to name a few, she is widely regarded as one of Britain’s leading contemporary technique teachers. k|n|d|c (kerry nicholls dance company) was founded in 1999 as a vehicle to promote her own choreographic research. Since its inception, Kerry has created numerous works for the company as well as receiving independent commissions from institutions, organisations and companies within Europe, China and the USA and has directed various productions at the National Theatre, the Royal Opera house and the Royal Festival Hall.

She was appointed Co-Director of Creative Learning for Wayne McGregor | Random Dance in 2007, in addition to becoming the artistic adviser for the English National Ballet School in 2008. Currently, she is also the external assessor for the Royal Ballet School and choreographic mentor for the Royal Opera House and Youth Dance England.

The class: Kerry’s fast paced class fuses Limon and release based techniques, creating a thorough, athletic and energetic approach. Her work incorporates challenge in co-ordination skills, spacial architectonics and kinetics, with an emphasis on stamina, momentum and musical sensibility.

My verdict: Dancers were lining up, fighting to get into Nicholls’s class. Ijust made it…and I was there half an hour early. When there is this much determination to get in, the expectations of such a class rise exponentially. This was the first time I’ve had the privilege of Nicholls’s class, and it didn’t disappoint.

Full of energy and positive feedback, Nicholls offers a dynamic and engaging class where you don’t stop moving. Directions are given in a clear and precise manner, each person encouraged to fly into the movement with a (certain degree of) abandon. Complex sequences are created using curves, deep plie, lunges and off-balance moments where focus and the relationship between skull and pelvis aide the dynamic moment. There was a short warm up, followed by phrases that built on one another, developing static sequences into locomotive ones.

Nicholls’s energy was infectious and I left this class feeling thoroughly worked – mentally and physically. A really enjoyable class – go if you can!!

(image via Greenwich Dance Academy)

For further reading, click here for a lovely short interview with Nicholls…