The UK’s first and only bursary supported Hip Hop training and development programme, providing a much-needed supported route into the professional performance sector particularly for early career Black and Global Majority dancers

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JUAC is an intensive professional development programme aimed at young Hip Hop dancers aged 18-23 years.

The apprentices work together for 13 weeks: 6 weeks of training; 6 weeks of mentored creation and rehearsals with choreographers; and exposure to touring and performing through a production week in a theatre and a showcase performance at the end of the programme. The work then embarks on a UK tour.

The programme fosters creative learning by offering a bursary for artists, support with travel costs, dedicated space and mentorship for artists to explore Hip Hop dance, movement, and choreography, and the opportunity to collaborate with a group of performers in a shared space.

JUAC provides a broad range of content for holistic output – including training sessions in Hip Hop styles, strength training, language skills, safeguarding, managing finances and understanding what is involved in being a freelancer.

JUAC also provides opportunities to build audiences for Hip Hop across the country, with opportunities to engage with diverse and high-quality Hip-Hop dance during the Company’s national tour.

Insights from previous participants:

“Programs like JUAC are extremely important for elevating the Hip Hop community because it provides space for ethnic minority dancers to bridge the gap between training and professional.”
“I feel much more confident than I did before the Apprenticeship as I felt there’d be a long gap and years of training before being able to enter a professional Hip Hop space. But because of the amount of intensity, I feel that I gained a lot more personally and had more preparation for work than I did in university.”
“It was especially great in filling the lack of representation for young women and ethnic women in the Hip Hop industry.”

“The level of physicality and skill on display by these emerging talents cannot be understated. As a company of only 12 weeks, they showcase an unquestionable ability, identity, and voice as a collective.

We’re even treated to their wisdom in the Q&A: to push beyond comfort zones, reimagine our limits, and dare to dream the impossible.”

— Isaac Ouro-Gnao, I Am Hip-Hop Magazine