National Youth Dance Company, Quartier Paradis, Sadler's Wells

Set up by Sadler's Wells a decade ago, National Youth Dance Company (NYDC) is a project intended to give dance students from across the UK the chance to work with a dedicated director and gain experience of professional dance. The young dancers selected to take part are aged mostly 16 to 18, but there's a higher age ceiling for those with a disability. They stay with NYDC for a maximum of two years.

As the project moved from strength to strength over the past few years, so different cohorts have had the chance to work with directors such as Akram Khan, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Botis Seva, Russell Maliphant and Michael Keegan-Dolan. This year's cohort of 32 has been working with Alesandra Seutin, whose directorship of NYDC has spilled over from last year.

Seutin was born in Zimbabwe and trained in London where she now resides. Her work is complex, relying on a variety of influences that include African dances and hip-hop, and incorporates the spoken word. Her project for this year's cohort is entitled Quartier Paradis and explores the relationship between movement, voice and music.


Quartier Paradis, we're told, dives into parallel universes built on fantasy and defined by ritual, memories and ancestral heritage. However abstruse the concept, these success-hungry young dancers are sure to bring it to impressive fruition.

NYDC is a career-shaping project: 80% of all its former dancers are now either in further dance studies, in vocational training or working professionally. Among the companies that NYDC alumni have joined are Hofesh Shechter Company, BalletBoyz, Matthew Bourne's New Adventures and Rambert2, to mention but a few.