Meet the Artist: Louise Katerega

What is your name?

Louise Katerega at work. “Muuuuuummy!” at home. My married name at the school gates, the doctor’s and at tax return time!

Where do you live?

Braunstone

What can’t you live without?

Netflix, chocolate, iPod, laughter, friendship, variety, hope. And my crazy-beautiful family of course.

What is your secret obsession?

Plants vs Zombies. I blame my eldest.

What are you most looking forward to/excited about the project?

Giving something back, learning something new, hearing what matters to all of us. And probably the quickest it has ever taken me to get to work!

What is your Artform/ Performance Style/ Background?

I’d call myself a dancer by training, a choreographer by nature, a teacher by experience and a creative in general.

I’ve tried most dance styles, taught people of all ages, including lots of disabled people, and worked with most other artforms in my time. Doing this has taught me equal respect for everything and everyone on this list.

I’ve had an amazing life journey in the arts. They took me from being the only brown face in a small Welsh town, via loads of inspiring experiences and artists, to four different continents, contributing to national events like the 2012 Olympics & Paralympics, and now trying to live the things I believe in a bit more. And they eventually brought me to this brilliant city, which adopted me aged 27, and where I am happy and proud to be one of all kinds of faces. The best thing about all this though is the friends I made on the way!

My style is CREATIVE and it’s ABOUT YOU.  In other words, though I can teach you a routine or work on a script or performance someone else wrote if you want, I am much keener to hear and see what YOU are all about, what you want to say about that through the arts and be the sounding board in helping you decide how to share that with an audience.

What does heritage mean to you?

My own African, English, Welsh, Irish, working-class heritage? Pride, preserving and passing on. Leicester’s heritage? So many untold and half-told stories we need to bring to light…

It’s also sitting listening to my Gran, who lived through all the most incredible events of the 20th century, telling me family stories; scouring a history book about heroism at school (back in the day!) for the one or two stories in there about women (!) All the school trips and outings I remember best….

In general, heritage for me is the closest to time travel I am ever likely to get! One the first major things to happen for me in Leicster was performing and choreographing at New Walk Museum.

When I go to real place or see real things and hear the stories of the people who interacted with them, I can imagine other lives I will never get to live. I then compare them with my own and understand better where I fit in the world, what never changes about human beings – and what really, really better change to stop us making the mistakes of the past!

Your interesting fact or claim to fame?

I once tripped over Sir Ian McKellen (Gandalf in Lord of the Rings) backstage at a benefit concert in the Royal Festival Hall. He was very nice about it. I was also on a Sunday TV programme as a teenager called ‘Highway’ with Sir Harry Seacombe. Ask your grandparents! I was in my youth dance group dancing in appalling legwarmers. So grateful there was no YouTube then!