Kate Prince
A British choreographer with all the right moves
WORDS | MARIA YACOOB
KATE PRINCE MAY NOT BE A HOUSEHOLD NAME, but her dance steps have flickered across television screens across the world. As one of the UK’s top street choreographers, Prince, 35, has worked on countless pop videos for acts as diverse as Utah Saints, The Saturdays and The Kills. Her troupe, ZooNation, has performed at the closing ceremony for the Beijing Olympics and Nelson Mandela’s 90th birthday bash in Hyde Park.
But now both Prince and ZooNation have a more theatrical claim to the dance hall of fame. Their show, Into the Hoods (which is based on the Stephen Sondheim musical Into the Woods) last year became the first hip hop show to prove a huge West End hit.
“I wanted to create a show that reached across generations,” she says. “So I focused on the idea of using hip hop to tell fairy stories.” Her reimaginings, including Spinderella’s lost golden Nike, and ‘Basement’ Jaxx climbing the beanstalk to retrieve his beloved iPod, were performed night after night with such energy that the show became a hit with theatre critics and school kids alike. Guest appearances from Britain’s Got Talent winner George Sampson only added to the hype.
Prince recently started work on a film called Street Dance 3D, which features two more Britain’s Got Talent dance groups: Diversity and Flawless. “Who’d have thought that for the past two years the UK’s biggest talent competition would’ve been won by street dance acts?” With the popularity of Prince’s work, we can expect many more.
Into the Hoods is showing at the Southbank Centre from 16 December to 10 January. www.zoonation.co.uk
