When Vicki Igbokwe-Ozoagu walked into a New York nightclub in 2008, she froze. Locals were dancing with such carefree confidence that the professional choreographer’s own self-belief was immediately zapped. She cowered against a wall alone until one unrelenting regular ushered her into a crowd of ravers, who applauded as she twirled. “They were just boosting me up,” she says. “I felt like Janet Jackson. And then I danced the whole night.”
Now Igbokwe-Ozoagu’s work based on the encounter, Our Mighty Groove, which incorporates the choreographer’s blend of club styles – house, waacking and vogue – as well as African and contemporary dance, will serve as the inaugural show at Sadler’s Wells’ new powerhouse dance theatre: Sadler’s Wells East, opening this February.
