Avalon Rathgeb graduated from Bird College in 2009 after studying on a 3 year full time scholarship. Recipient of two internships from the American Tap Dance Foundation 2009/11, Grant Swift’s TeAyPe (Melbourne, Australia) 2009-10, a scholarship for the Los Angeles Tap Festival 2012, winner of the 2013 cutting contest at Stockholm Tap Festival, invited to accept 1 of 25 places reserved for outstanding dancers in the 2014 Tap programme at the School at Jacob’s Pillow in Massachusetts, USA. Her career highlights include dancing in the opening ceremony of London 2012 Olympic Games, the closing ceremony of the European Games (Baku Azerbaijan) 2015, Artistic Director of ‘Old Kent Road’ 2014-current, principle dancer for ‘Tapestry Dance Company’ under the direction of Acia Gray 2017-19. Avalon is endorsed by Ruben Sanchez DanceWear. 

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Avalon is the Founder and Artistic Director of London’s preeminent tap dance company ‘Old Kent Road’ which she founded in London in 2014 and has now received Arts Council England funding four times. An except of ‘Fall Out’ was accepted to perform at Resolution! 2015, the full length work premiered in 2016 which went on to tour throughout the UK for 3 years including DanceBase as part of Edinburgh Fringe where they received 5* reviews and ‘recommend show’. In the summer of 2018 ‘OSCiLLATE’ co-choreographed by Avalon and Dre Torres premiered at the world renowned dance house Sadler’s Wells- The Lilian Baylis Theatre. OSCiLLATE has been performed at venues such as: The London Cabaret Club as part of The London Tap Dance Intensive and DanceBase as part of Edinburgh Fringe Festival, DanceEast, Salisbury Playhouse as part of Salisbury International Arts Festival, Bath Theatre Royal, HOLT Festival, Latitude Festival, Grand Theatre Shanghai (China).

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Humbled to have spent the past 2 years performing as a principle dancer with ‘Tapestry Dance Company’, North America’s only full time and salaried tap dance company Texas, USA. Under the direction of Acia Gray Avalon performed and toured shows including: ‘Just Tap’, ‘Mice and Music- A Jazz Tap Nutcracker’, ‘April Fools’, ‘Sound and Silence’, ‘Passing it Forward- The American Dream?’ and ‘The Souls of our Feet’.

As a solo artist Avalon frequently teaches and performs internationally for tap festivals and events including; Dubrovnik Tap Festival (Croatia), Taptastic (Germany), Stockholm Tap Festival (Sweden), Prague City Tap Festival (Czech Republic), Australian Tap Festival,  TapUnited (USA), Escola Luthier Dansa (Spain), Tanzhaus (Germany), Tip-Tap Run (Poland) Moscato Tap Festival (Italy), Tapworks (Malaysia), Bolzano Tanz International DanceFestival (Italy), Riff Dallas (USA) Workshops (Singapore), Odessa Tap Festival (Ukraine). In the UK she has performed at events including: Harrods Boxing day opening celebration, the 1st International Chinese Film Awards interviewed for BBC Radio London. In 2016 Avalon was invited to create a show ‘K-Tap’ in Kuwait in collaboration with LAPA LOYAC. In the UK Avalon teaches regularly at Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, Pineapple Dance Studios, Morea Performing Arts and South London Dance Studios. 

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Avalon is excited to be based back in London where she will be touring OSCiLLATE with ‘Old Kent Road’ throughout the UK. She will teaching and performing at various events in 2020 including: Guadalajara Tap Festival (Mexico), Bolzano Danza (Italy) and has just started collaborating on ‘Plaza’ as a movement director for CSSD.