Nick McKerrow – Independent Artist
Dancer, Choreographer and Artist
Nick McKerrow is a learning-disabled, LGBTQ+ dance artist, performer and emerging choreographer. He has been a professional dancer with Anjali Dance Company for more than 20 years and is now developing an independent choreographic practice alongside his work as a performer.
Nick is an artist with an established international performance career and a growing profile as a disabled-led creative voice. His practice is rooted in lived experience, exploring identity, independence, belonging, relationships and the experience of being a learning-disabled person navigating the world.
His work asks audiences to see disabled people not through assumptions about what they can or cannot do, but through their creativity, individuality, humour, ambition and humanity.
From Performer to Choreographer
Nick’s creative practice has developed throughout his career with Anjali.
He has previously created and performed his own work, including Second Skin, a solo exploring identity and gender stereotyping. The work was created by Nick in collaboration with choreographer Aya Kobayashi and Anjali founder Nicole Thomson and formed part of Unexploded Stories.
In 2024, Nick began a new phase of his practice, supported by an Arts Council England Developing Your Creative Practice (DYCP) award. This marked a significant step in his transition from performer towards choreographer and creative leader.
His development continued through FABRIC’s Keep Moving Artist Development Programme, where Anjali partnered with FABRIC and the Dance Leaders Group to create a professional development residency specifically designed to support disabled artists into leadership and creative roles.
Working closely with award-winning choreographer Gary Clarke and Artist Mentor Rachel Liggitt, Nick took responsibility for creative decision-making and developed his first autobiographical solo work.
Nick McKerrow in Second Skin
Nick McKerrow in Second Skin
Nick McKerrow in The Whole of Me Photo by: Elly Welford
Nick McKerrow – The Whole of Me 2026 – Photo by Elly Welford
Nick McKerrow is a dancer.
He is a choreographer.
He is an artist.
And he is making his own work.
Nick McKerrow in The Whole of Me Photo by: Elly Welford
“I wanted to say how much impact Nick’s performance and CPD event has had on me and the FABRIC team. It was such a beautiful piece and exploration of Nick’s life – a pure joy and pleasure to see.”
Nick McKerrow during The Whole of Me CPD Photo by: Ming
The Whole of Me
The Whole of Me is Nick’s first major autobiographical solo as a choreographer and creative lead.
The work explores independence, sexuality, family dynamics and identity through Nick’s lived experience as a learning-disabled LGBTQ+ man. It brings audiences into Nick’s world and invites them to reconsider assumptions about independence, disability and the lives of learning-disabled people.
The work has been developed over two years with artistic guidance from Gary Clarke and Rachel Liggitt, alongside Anjali’s producing support. In April 2026, Anjali and Nick shared a preview of the work at Lakeside Arts in Nottingham as part of a wider professional development event exploring disabled-led leadership, access, belonging and artistic agency.
The development of The Whole of Me is also an important part of Anjali’s wider commitment to changing pathways into leadership for learning-disabled artists.
In 2026, Nick was selected for an Unlimited Open Award to develop The Whole of Me towards a full production and future touring. The commission is supporting the next stage of the work, with public sharing and development planned through 2026–27.
An International Performer
Alongside his work with Anjali, Nick has built an international career as a performer.
He has performed with Anjali nationally and internationally, including work presented in Europe and through international collaborations. He also performs internationally as Nikita Gold with Drag Syndrome, bringing together dance, performance and drag.
Nick’s career demonstrates the breadth of opportunities available to learning-disabled artists when they are supported to develop professional careers on their own terms.
His work has included appearances in major arts and cultural contexts, and he became the first learning-disabled artist to be featured in The Stage. He has also appeared in British Vogue.
A New Creative Role
Nick’s development as a choreographer represents an important progression in his career and in Anjali’s approach to artist development.
For more than 30 years, Anjali has supported learning-disabled people to establish themselves as professional dance artists. Nick’s development demonstrates the next stage of that ambition: creating opportunities for learning-disabled artists to move beyond established roles, take creative leadership and author their own work.
Through his independent practice, Nick is developing from performer to choreographer, creative leader and artist with his own body of work.
Anjali is proud to support Nick as his producing partner, helping to develop his work, build audiences and create opportunities for his practice to reach the wider dance sector.
What’s next
With the support of Unlimited, Nick is continuing to develop The Whole of Me towards a full premiere and tour.
The work represents an important new chapter in Nick’s career: a major piece of disabled-led dance theatre authored by a learning-disabled artist and shaped by his own lived experience.
Nick’s ambitions extend beyond a single production. He is continuing to develop his choreographic practice and explore what it means to be a learning-disabled artist leading creative work.
His journey is part of a wider shift in the dance sector towards recognising disabled artists not only as performers, but as choreographers, makers, leaders and decision-makers.
Nick McKerrow
Photo by: Romy Whai