NOW → NEXT
WHAT AM I QUESTIONING NOW?
The questions change. The practice keeps moving.
Joseph Toonga's current practice is moving beyond the idea of choreography as a finished object. Performance remains central, but the research increasingly asks what can happen around it, after it and between disciplines: how movement can create conversation, how an audience can remain connected after leaving a theatre, and how people, society and technology are changing the ways we gather, communicate and care.
THE PERFORMANCE IS NO LONGER NECESSARILY THE END OF THE WORK.
JOY ISN’T ALWAYS JOY — THE BODY BLACK
BLACK MEN
〰️
GRIEF
〰️
JOY
〰️
BROTHERHOOD
〰️
CARE
〰️
BLACK MEN 〰️ GRIEF 〰️ JOY 〰️ BROTHERHOOD 〰️ CARE 〰️
Joy Isn't Always Joy is part of Joseph's continuing THE BODY BLACK research, centering the lived experiences and inner worlds of Black and Brown men.
The work begins with contradiction. What does joy look like when grief is still present? What happens beneath the expectation to be strong? Where do loneliness, fear, tenderness and vulnerability live when the outside world has already decided what a Black male body represents?
Developed through artistic research in Brazil and the UK, the work brings Hip Hop, Krump, Capoeira, popping, contemporary movement and slow-motion physicality into a deeply human conversation about masculinity, friendship, mental health and collective care.
Rather than presenting vulnerability as the opposite of strength, Joy Isn't Always Joy asks whether being witnessed, supported and cared for can itself be an act of strength.
FROM CONFRONTATION → CARE
THE JOY COMPANION
WHAT IF THE RELATIONSHIP WITH AN AUDIENCE CONTINUED AFTER THE PERFORMANCE?
The JOY Companion extends the project beyond the stage. Designed as a digital companion accessed through a QR journey, it creates space for audiences to reflect before and after encountering the work.
The companion is being developed through collaboration with artists, psychologists and partners across the UK and Brazil. It can hold reflection prompts, lived voices, film, photography, contextual material and carefully signposted resources, allowing audiences to engage with the questions raised by the performance at their own pace.
The research asks a larger question: can the responsibility of an artwork extend beyond what happens in the theatre? Instead of asking an audience to encounter difficult material and simply leave, the companion explores how a choreographic project might continue a conversation, offer context and create pathways towards further reflection or support.
THE WORK DOESN'T HAVE TO END WHEN THE AUDIENCE LEAVES.
The Born to... works asked questions around representation, stereotype, resistance and visibility. Joy Isn't Always Joy moves further inward: What sits underneath anger? What happens after protest? Where does grief live in the body? What might care look like as an action rather than an idea?
SYNERGY IN MOTION
ABBEY ROAD STUDIOS
〰️
Movement
〰️
Music
〰️
Film
〰️
ABBEY ROAD STUDIOS 〰️ Movement 〰️ Music 〰️ Film 〰️
Synergy in Motion began as an encounter between choreography, composition and one of the world's most recognisable recording spaces.
Created around the reopening of Abbey Road Studios' Studio One in 2025, the project brought Joseph's choreography into conversation with music by film composer Daniel Pemberton, reshaped through collaboration with Abbey Road Artist in Residence Jordan Rakei.
Rather than treating music as a finished score for choreography to follow, the project opened a different question: what happens when movement and music are allowed to influence one another?
WHAT IF MUSIC DOESN'T COME FIRST?
For Joseph, Synergy in Motion creates another space between worlds: Hip Hop and classical movement languages, live bodies and cinematic music, choreographic structure and musical improvisation. The continuing research is interested not in fusion for its own sake, but in conversation — allowing different disciplines and histories to remain recognisable while changing what becomes possible around them.
NOT TOWARDS FUSION —
TOWARDS CONVERSATION.
-
Choreography: Joseph Toonga
Original concept: Mark Robertson
Music / collaboration: Daniel Pemberton; Jordan Rakei
Costume Design: Vitória Flores
Creative Director: Lewis Knaggs
Director / DOP: Tom Butler
Producer: Georgia Grant
Executive Producers: Ffion Knaggs; Mark Robertson; Estelle Dixon
Production: LSK Productions
KINGS WITHOUT CASTLES
RIO × LONDON
〰️
PASSINHO × HIP HOP
〰️
PUBLIC SPACE
〰️
RIO × LONDON 〰️ PASSINHO × HIP HOP 〰️ PUBLIC SPACE 〰️
Kings Without Castles is a new outdoor work emerging from Joseph's ongoing relationship with Brazil and a collaboration with artists connected to Rio's Passinho culture.
The work investigates identity, resilience, community, creativity and survival through movement languages shaped by very different places. Passinho emerged through Rio's communities as a highly individual, competitive and inventive social dance language.
In conversation with Joseph's Hip Hop-rooted practice, it becomes part of a wider enquiry into how culture is carried through the body and how movement can create belonging in public space.
The project is being developed with Peterson Sidy / Reis da Dança, VN Rodrigues and André OliveiraDB, bringing together different artistic histories rather than flattening them into a single style.
NOT EVERY STAGE NEEDS WALLS.
Designed initially for outdoor performance, Kings Without Castles asks how choreography changes when the audience has not necessarily bought a ticket, entered a theatre or agreed in advance to watch. The street becomes part of the dramaturgy: people arrive, leave, gather, interrupt and encounter the work from different directions.
The research also considers what it means for a collaboration to move between Rio and the UK without treating either place as an aesthetic backdrop. Place, community and the social histories of the movement are part of the work.
CURRENT RESEARCH
WHAT COMES NEXT DOESN'T HAVE A NAME YET.
Joseph's current research is not limited to announced productions. It is a space for questions that may become performances, films, collaborations, installations or something not yet defined.
PEOPLE · SOCIETY · TECHNOLOGY
BLACK BRITISH IDENTITY · AFRICAN DIASPORA
EAST LONDON · MIGRATION · ARCHITECTURE
VISUAL ART · MEMORY · THE BODY AS ARCHIVE
How is technology changing the way people meet, communicate, remember and experience art? How does architecture influence who feels welcome in a space? What histories sit inside a body before choreography begins? How might visual art, music, film or a building become a choreographic starting point?
Sometimes a work begins with movement. Sometimes with music, an image, a building, a memory, a conversation — or a question that refuses to disappear.
INSIDE THE STUDIO
A changing collection of short films, fragments and experiments from Joseph's current practice.
Possible rotating material: movement research; Portugal / Companhia Nacional de Bailado; Rio / Passinho; Synergy in Motion; new Royal Ballet or classical research where appropriate; interdisciplinary experiments; unfinished ideas.
NOT EVERYTHING HERE IS A FINISHED WORK.
UPCOMING / LIVE
COLLABORATION
THE NEXT COLLISION COULD START HERE.
Joseph is open to conversations across choreography, movement direction, dance, theatre, film, music, fashion, visual art, architecture, technology, public space and international collaboration.
The starting point does not need to be a finished commission. It might be a question, a space, a piece of music, a story, a community, a visual idea or a problem that movement could help investigate.
YOU DON'T NEED TO ARRIVE WITH A FINISHED IDEA.
SOMETIMES THE MOST INTERESTING WORK BEGINS WITH A QUESTION.
NORTH AMERICA — TOURING + REPRESENTATION
Cathy Pruzan
Artist Representative, Pruzan Dance Arts
cpruzan@aol.com
Office: +1 415 789 5051
Cell: +1 415 710 6914
DIRECT / CREATIVE ENQUIRIES
Joseph Toonga
josephtoonga@justusdancetheatre.com
info@josephtoongacreates.com
Instagram: @josephtoonga
BALLET / EUROPE — INTERNATIONAL ARTS + CULTURAL PROJECTS
Assis Carreiro
contact@assiscarreiro.com
susannah@assiscarreiro.com
+44 (0)7879 415882