I am a London based dance maker, performer and educator.
My work explores universal notions of the group, the individual and the outsider, and challenges what it means to be part of a diverse, contemporary urban generation today. It is informed by having been raised in two different environments, in Ghana and the multicultural, dynamic hub of East London. I am interested in cultural differences beyond the obvious and how they manifest themselves as meaningful similarities and differences in human relationships.
I seek the unexpected, and with my collaborators, we employ task-based or gaming methodologies as our principal creative processes to arrive at live works which are deliberately unpredictable, sometimes with indeterminate outcomes and which challenge conventional norms of performance.
My body holds a wide variety of movement languages: hip-hop, capoeira, tai chi, Ghanian folk dance, contact improvisation, breakdance and many contemporary dance techniques. I also draw extensively from the different experiences and skills from my performers and collaborators. This approach leads to a highly collaborative, fresh and instinctive dance works.
Freddie’s interest in dance began at Newham Sixth Form College in 1996. Originally he wanted to study art and design, but the more malleable quality he saw in dance led him to opt for studying dance at the college and then at London Contemporary Dance School. In his final year he took part in an exchange programme with the Californian Institute for the Arts, which was a huge influence in starting his interest in craft and cross art form practice.
Whilst at London Contemporary Dance School he was invited by Newham Sixth Form College, East London Dance, The Place and Sadler’s Wells to take part in S.T.E.P. (Saburo Teshigawara Education Project), where he performed Flower Eyes 2, at the Lilian Baylis theatre, Sadler’s Wells, London and at STOA Festival, Finland.
After graduation he worked as an independent dance artist performing and creating with Jonzi D, Rashpal Singh Bansal, Pan Intercultural Arts, Clod Ensemble, Mary Neal Project (led by Lucy Neal Co-Founder LIFT Festival), Phakama, Almeida Projects with the Bridge School, and Candoco Dance Company, where he worked with choreographers Arthur Pita and Rafael Bonachela. He was also member of Wayne McGregor’s Random Dance’s apprentice scheme, with whom he toured internationally in works including Alpha and Nemesis. He continues to be invited by the company to lead education training programmes and residencies, and was recently one of the lead independent artists to work on the Big Dance London commission for Random Dance. Together with dancer Anna Nowark Freddie worked with dancers from Beijing City Contemporary Dance Company to present a performance in Trafalgar Square as part of the Cultural Olympiad 2012.
Encouraged by Wayne McGregor, Freddie created Awol for a cast of the Random dancers in 2004. In 2006 he received his first Place Prize commission and created the breakthrough work Silence Speaks Volumes, which reached the finals, won the VI Certamen Internacional de Coreografia award, and was part of the National Dance Network Dance3 tour UK in 2010.
In 2008 the Royal Opera House ROH2 commissioned the quartet, We Flew (with bags of issues). In the same year Youth Dance England and East London Dance commissioned Set in Stone with East London Youth Dance Company, which premiered at the Purcell Room, Southbank Centre. With its success, it was restaged for Youth Dance England’s National Conference in 2009.
Since 2009 Freddie has been commissioned and programmed by numerous organisations and festivals. Major achievements include receiving the The Place’s Robin Howard Choreographic Commission, for which he created the trio Mis-thread in 2009, which was presented by Dance Umbrella, at the Decibel Performing Arts Showcase and at ADAD’s Bloom Festival. Freddie received the ADAD Trailblazer Award 2008 and is currently a ADAD Trailblazer Champion with support to develop future projects. Freddie was one of six artists selected to take part in the Jerwood Bank Project in 2008 with Siobhan Davies Dance, giving mid-career artists an insight into choreographic process with the choreographer for an intense six weeks. His duet, BF with Jorge Crecis was selected for an Aerowaves tour, and won a new commission from Certamen Internacional de Coreografia Burgos-New York.
Freddie became an Associate Artist of the Royal Opera House ROH2 in 2009-2012, where he created Scratch Love for Joanna MacGregor’s Deloitte Ignite in 2010, and associate commissioned work Absent Made Present in 2012.
In 2012 and 2013 he created Bespoke, an investigative project that was adapted from Absent Made Present, where Freddie worked with local craft and dance artists in Devon and Canterbury. Bespoke is one of Freddie’s continuing endeavours and he has plans to present new versions in different localities in the future.
In 2009 Freddie was one of thirteen artists selected to be part of ChoreoRoam 2009, a unique collaboration between The Place, Operaestate Festival Veneto (Italy), Dansateliers (Netherlands), Dansescenen (Denmark), Dance Week Festival (Croatia) and Certamen Coreográfico de Madrid (Spain). He was also commissioned by Operaestate Veneto’s B-Motion festival in north Italy to create Conosco I Miei Polli (I Know My Chickens) with a group of young professional dancers. The final piece was presented in Villa Da Porto Montorso in Italy.
Freddie has twice been commissioned by the BalletBoyz Michael Nunn and William Trevitt. He choreographed the dance of the chosen for their BBC film Rite of Spring and B Banned for their national touring programme, The Talent. Freddie worked with them again and the ROH Education team to create a film, Chasing Wonderland, in 2011.
In 2010/11 he co-created the duet Fidelity Project with Frauke Requart, commissioned by and finalist of The Place Prize UK, the work started during ChoreoRoam.
In 2011 he was commissioned to create Politicking Oath for 2Faced Dance Company, which toured nationally and international throughout Europe and South America. In 2013 he created Remaining Energy, a site-specific movement, dance, sound and music response to Leandro Erlich’s Dalston House installation, commissioned by The Barbican.
This year Freddie continues to tour his solo work, Show of Hands, which premiered at Dance Umbrella in 2013; he is creating a new work, Unplugged Bodies, with Kyoung Shin Kim, which premieres in May in Korea; and works on Movement Direction for Turfed, a LIFT 2014, partnership with Street Child World Cup performed in an industrial hangar of Hackney Downs Studios, London in June.