ZooNation The Kate Prince Company

ZooNation was founded by Kate Prince in 2002 and is best known for its work in the theatre, creating full length narrative dance productions strongly influenced by hip hop culture and music. We fortify this work with an extensive programme of engagement and talent development, working with different communities and young artists to increase their skills, knowledge and confidence in our styles of dance theatre.

Whilst working as a choreographer for music acts on television and in music video, Kate was distracted by the immense talent of the dancers backing the artists. She founded ZooNation as a company that could highlight the skills of these ‘backing dancers’ and give them their own platform as artists in their own right. At the time, the career path for a ‘backing dancer’ was limited whilst for a contemporary, ballet or musical theatre dancer, the breadth of employment opportunities was vast. Our first production, BoxBeat, was performed at Sadler’s Wells in the Lilian Baylis studio. It told a loose tale of three children who ran away from home and got lost in a new world of vibrant dance and music. This same idea was to be developed three years later to become Into the Hoods.

We have gained significant recognition for our artistic excellence through a variety of associateships which reflect the diverse facets of our work as artistic leaders, a trailblazing company and an enabler of the next generation of talent.