Neila Ebanks

I am a full-time lecturer in Performance and Improvisation at The Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts. My Jamaican performance and choreography connections include work with my own eNKompan.E™, The Stella Maris Young Adult Dance Ensemble (founding member), The University Dance Society (Past President & choreographer), L’ACADCO Dance Company (freelance dance artist & choreographer), Dance Theatre Xaymaca (choreographer & guest performer), ASHE Caribbean Performing Arts Ensemble (tutor & choreographer), Movements Dance Company (choreographer), The Company Dance Theatre (choreographer) and The National Dance Theatre Company of Jamaica (which I entered as recipient of the Clive Thompson Scholarship). Most recently, I participated in the CulturesFrance sponsored Bienal de Danza del Caribe with the solo In Honour of Locks with Keys and Coupons to my Heart (March 2008) and performed with Trinidad’s Continuum Dance Project in October 2008.

Always committed to pushing my artistic boundaries, I have worked as Arts Copyright advocate (Choreography is Copyrightable™), producer, performer and choreographer in the worlds of Dance/Theatre locally and in the UK and have been twice nominated for an International Theatre Institute Actor Boy Award for Choreography – The Black That I Am (2005) and De Moon In De Crossroads (2006). I have also made a foray into Film and Media, acting in Almost Heaven, a German movie shot in Jamaica and appearing in various television commercials and music videos. More recently I was a permanent judge on the very popular television dance competition Dancin’ Dynamites and I continue to host the Creative Television (CTV) programmes, Repertoire, and One on One. I continue to be very interested in the integration of Movement and Voicework and in October 2009 experimented with directing my own physical theatre production PSSST! for the EMCVPA School of Drama. My passion for Dance has also progressed into the realm of Dance in Alternative Spaces as evidenced in my work for Living Art off the Wall (Jamaica) , DANCEFEST 2004 and 2005 (Jamaica), and the Kingston on the EDGE Festival 2008, 2009 and 2010 (Jamaica).