Avant Garde Dance

Avant Garde Dance is a London based company led by Artistic Director Tony Adigun, specialising in hip-hop and contemporary dance. Tony Adigun started his career in the commercial industry where at 19 years old he choreographed and toured the world with many leading recording artists. The company was formed by Tony Adigun in 2001 as a creative release from working in the world of commercial dance. Adigun wanted to bring together a group of like-minded dancers to explore the more unusual, abstract and artistic ideas away from the mainstream. The name 'Avant Garde' was chosen to represent those intentions and the company mantra is 'Innovate Never Replicate'. As a result of bringing the commercial industry and artistic world together, the company is now highly respected in both hip-hop and contemporary dance circles. Avant Garde have performed and produced work both in the UK and internationally, including at The Place, Breakin' Convention, Sadler's Wells Theatre, Pavilion Dance, Southbank Centre, Barbican, DanceXchange, Greenwich Dance, Latitude Festival, British Dance Edition 2012, Greenwich and Docklands International Festival, Brighton Dome, East London Dance at Stratford Circus, Barcelona Festival and Madison Square Gardens in New York. Avant Garde Dance are an East London Dance Associate Company. Avant Garde Dance also offers a broad education and youth programme and has established Avant Garde Youth.



Productions include The Black Album (2013), MILK+LUS (2013), DAER SKOOB (2013), Monteverdi Ballets (2013), Beatific Vision (2012), Illegal Dance (2011), The Bunkere Thing (2010), Taxi (2010), Silver Tree (2009-2001), Roll or Die (2009) and Attack of the Bandstand (2008).



Tony Adigun has run workshops and undertaken performance commissions worldwide, including Vietnam, America, Poland, Russia and Portugal. Commercially he has choreographed and performed with artists from the UK and the US including Janet Jackson, Usher, Ashanti, Mel B, JoJo, Cheryl Cole and Whitney Houston. As a freelance choreographer, Adigun was a semi-finalist in The Place Prize 2012 and was also commissioned by The Place to remake Richard Alston's 'Wildlife' as part of Dance Umbrella 2011, which subsequently went on tour with Edge graduate company. In 2012 he was invited by Breakin' Convention to research and develop a new work in conjunction with Parc de Villette in Paris. As part of Big Dance 2008 he choreographed the Big Chair Dance. He was co-choreographer on the Royal Opera House Education and East London Dance production of 'The Last Genie'. He was guest choreographer for The Exhibitionists, an international ensemble of acrobats and dancers brought together for the Road Show festival. Adigun is a Work Place Artist at The Place and is being mentored by Akram Khan. He is the Creative Director for Sky One's 'Got to Dance' and he was the recipient of the BEFFTA Award for Best Choreographer in 2011 and 2012.