The son of an African chief, Bode Lawal is one of the country's leading dancers and choreographers. Now living in the North-East, he tells Lindsay Jennings how he won the support of movie star Jamie Lee Curtis.
BODE Lawal was in Santa Monica, California, teaching dance to his youth group when a tall girl caught his eye. Her name was Annie. "She was a fantastic mover," he recalls. "So I picked her out to do a solo."
After the show, Bode went into the audience to select some proud parents and encourage them to sing with the group. He vaguely recognised Annie's mum who was tall and slender like her daughter and, despite her protests, he pulled her up with some of the other parents. The singing over, Jamie Lee Curtis introduced herself.
"She was petrified but after the show she came over and I was blown away," says Bode. "She's helped the company in LA but she's more than just a sponsor, she's a very good friend, she's like a sister. Her children, Annie and Tom, are her world. Everything she does is about children."
Bode is speaking prior to his dance company, Sakoba, performing at Stockton's Arc. He has worked across the world, but has made Newcastle his home - a long way from his roots in Lagos, the former capital city of Nigeria.
All the men in his family are civil engineers and, in addition, his father is a Yoruba chief - Yoruba being an ancient Nigerian tribe. It is a title Bode, in his 40s, is expected to inherit one day, akin to inheriting the title of lord in Britain, but he is unsure whether he will take it. He has, after all, forged his own path as one of Britain's leading dancers and choreographers.
"I believe it's going to happen, but I don't want it," he says of the title. "I'm happy to pass it on to my younger brother. I still respect my culture and I won't forget it. I just have to see what happens."
Bode turned his back on civil engineering at an early age, being "no good at physics or chemistry". Instead, he loved to dance and when he was 14 he was invited to join the Nigerian national dance troupe.
"That kind of gave my father a wake-up call and he thought, this boy is not going to follow his path," he says, smiling.
Bode moved to Britain and formed his dance company Sakoba - meaning new dawn - in 1987. The aim was to celebrate the rich traditions of African dance and music but bring something new to the genre, producing exciting, contemporary pieces.
"We try and make our work more accessible and innovative," he says. "We're simply embracing the present as opposed to traditional, expected approach to African dance. I'll never forget I'm from West Africa, but it's very entertaining as well. It's not just serious. It's energetic and very innovative."
The work of Sakoba has gone on to be widely praised. Among Bode's accomplishments has been choreographing Macbeth for the English Shakespeare Company and being invited to go to the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) as a visiting dance professor to teach intercultural choreography.
It was while teaching there that he met Jamie Lee Curtis who went on to sponsor Sakoba, along with her husband Christopher Guest, Hollywood actress Sharon Stone, Titanic director James Cameron and the Oprah Winfrey Foundation.
The LA youth group he formed also has the children of a number of stars including Annie, daughter of Jamie Lee Curtis, who is financing the group, and the son of Lord of the Rings star Viggo Mortensen.
And it is no mean feat to make it in Los Angeles, home of cinema. One critic writing after Sakoba had performed at the Hollywood Centre for Performing Arts in Florida, described Bode as "...a Shaman on stage as he shape-shifts his dancers." The Guardian has called him "one of the leading spirits and creators of world dance".
His show at Stockton's Arc on Thursday March 9, a double bill entitled Sango & Iyanu, is likely to be just as impressive.
"The first half is an ancestral ritual dance to appease the god of thunder and lightning. The second half is a total contrast and is a soulful, seductive piece rooted in West African spirituality," says Bode, who has a 16-year-old son, Ayodaji, who lives in Nigeria with Bode's family.
"It is modern but still rooted in Africa."
Bodes sees Sakoba as the first post modern African dance theatre in the UK, different to those who produce "African Caribbeanism as a purely exotic, anthropological museum exhibit".
His ambitions for the future include setting up a dance school in the North-East to teach others about contemporary African dance.
"It's going to be my technique but embrace other techniques as well," he says. "I want to use dance to heal people, to make people happy if they are sad."
In the meantime, he is teaching students at Tyne Metropolitan College in Newcastle and will be heading up workshops in schools across the region as well as bringing Sakoba's work to theatre audiences in the North-East.
"I came to Newcastle two years ago because it's a city which is culturally diverse and it's growing all the time," he says. "It's our spiritual and cultural home now."
* Sakoba will be performing at Stockton's Arc at 7.30pm on Thursday, March 9. Tickets are priced £10, £8 for over 60s, and £5 for students and those on benefits. Contact the box office on (01642) 525199.
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