Ot­to Car­ring­ton

When Seon Nurse steps on­to one of the world’s biggest cul­tur­al stages as chore­o­g­ra­ph­er for a FI­FA Fan Fes­ti­val pre­sen­ta­tion with Uni­ver­Soul Cir­cus, he car­ries much more than chore­og­ra­phy with him.

He car­ries Laven­tille.

He car­ries Trinidad and To­ba­go.

And he car­ries the vi­brant spir­it of the Caribbean that has shaped every step of his jour­ney.

“For me, my Caribbean iden­ti­ty is not some­thing I have to bal­ance—it is some­thing I bring with me in­to every cre­ative space,” Nurse said.

That iden­ti­ty is wo­ven in­to a pre­sen­ta­tion de­signed to cel­e­brate uni­ty through cul­ture, bring­ing to­geth­er dance, cir­cus arts and sto­ry­telling be­fore a glob­al au­di­ence.

The pro­duc­tion, cre­at­ed for the FI­FA Fan Fes­ti­val through Uni­ver­Soul Cir­cus, opens with a pow­er­ful mes­sage of to­geth­er­ness be­fore tak­ing au­di­ences on a jour­ney through na­tions, tra­di­tions and cul­tures from around the world.

“The FI­FA Fan Fes­ti­val is about bring­ing the world to­geth­er, and that aligns per­fect­ly with the mis­sion of Uni­ver­Soul Cir­cus,” Nurse ex­plained. “Our vi­sion was to cel­e­brate uni­ty while high­light­ing the beau­ty of cul­tur­al di­ver­si­ty.”

For Nurse, the op­por­tu­ni­ty rep­re­sents a full-cir­cle mo­ment in a ca­reer that be­gan far from the bright lights of in­ter­na­tion­al stages.

Raised in Laven­tille, he was in­tro­duced to dance at just nine years old through the North West Laven­tille Cul­tur­al Move­ment, an or­gan­i­sa­tion he cred­its with lay­ing the foun­da­tion for his artis­tic and per­son­al de­vel­op­ment.

Un­der the men­tor­ship of its pres­i­dent, Gail Ed­in­bor­ough, Nurse learned lessons that ex­tend­ed well be­yond per­for­mance.

“She taught me that ex­cel­lence, dis­ci­pline and ser­vice to com­mu­ni­ty were just as im­por­tant as tal­ent,” he re­called. “She con­stant­ly pushed me to think big­ger and chal­lenge my­self to be­come more than just a per­former.”

Those lessons would help pro­pel him on­to na­tion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al stages, earn­ing recog­ni­tion as Best Over­all Dancer, Best Male Dancer and Best Chore­o­g­ra­ph­er. His ded­i­ca­tion al­so led him to be­come one of the first Trinida­di­ans award­ed a schol­ar­ship to the Bei­jing Dance Acad­e­my, where he stud­ied Chi­nese Folk Dance and deep­ened his un­der­stand­ing of how cul­ture can con­nect peo­ple across bor­ders.

An­oth­er defin­ing chap­ter came in 2016 when he joined Uni­ver­Soul Cir­cus.

Through the vi­sion of founder and CEO Cedric Walk­er, Nurse found a plat­form that al­lowed him not on­ly to per­form but al­so to share Caribbean cul­ture with au­di­ences across the Unit­ed States and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly.

“Through Uni­ver­Soul Cir­cus, I was giv­en op­por­tu­ni­ties to grow, de­vel­op and ex­pand my cre­ative abil­i­ties,” he said.

To­day, that growth has cul­mi­nat­ed in his role as chore­o­g­ra­ph­er for a pre­sen­ta­tion that show­cas­es both glob­al di­ver­si­ty and Caribbean au­then­tic­i­ty.

Au­di­ences can ex­pect far more than dance.

In keep­ing with the spir­it of Uni­ver­Soul Cir­cus, the pro­duc­tion com­bines chore­og­ra­phy with hand-bal­anc­ing, ur­ban skat­ing, spe­cial­i­ty cir­cus per­for­mances and vi­su­al sto­ry­telling.

Lead­ing the dance com­po­nent are Za­ki­ta Ed­in­bor­ough and Shaquille Mitchell, who serve as the pro­duc­tion’s Lim­bo Queen and Lim­bo King. Mitchell cur­rent­ly holds the ti­tle of 2026 Lim­bo King of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Their per­for­mances, Nurse said, help bring au­then­tic Caribbean cul­ture to life for in­ter­na­tion­al au­di­ences.

Yet while he has been en­trust­ed with the chore­og­ra­phy, Nurse is quick to em­pha­sise that the pro­duc­tion is the re­sult of a col­lec­tive ef­fort.

He cred­its Walk­er’s vi­sion for cul­tur­al in­clu­sion and pro­duc­er Deneise Howard’s lead­er­ship for cre­at­ing an en­vi­ron­ment where artists are en­cour­aged to push cre­ative bound­aries.

“This pre­sen­ta­tion is tru­ly the re­sult of a col­lab­o­ra­tive ef­fort,” Nurse said. “We were chal­lenged to think big­ger and cre­ate an ex­pe­ri­ence that re­flects both the glob­al spir­it of the FI­FA Fan Fes­ti­val and the cul­tur­al mis­sion of Uni­ver­Soul Cir­cus.”

Be­hind the scenes, he al­so ac­knowl­edges the work of tal­ent man­age­ment pro­fes­sion­als Er­i­ca Rawl­in and Crys­tal George, whose sup­port helps bring pro­duc­tions of this scale to life.

While au­di­ences will see on­ly the fin­ished per­for­mance, Nurse notes that months of plan­ning, re­hearsals, meet­ings and ad­just­ments have gone in­to every de­tail.

“A typ­i­cal day in­volves work­ing with dancers, cir­cus artists, pro­duc­tion teams, tal­ent man­agers and tech­ni­cal staff to en­sure every de­tail sup­ports the over­all vi­sion,” he said.

Through­out the process, Nurse says his up­bring­ing has re­mained his great­est cre­ative in­flu­ence.

The rhythms of steel­pan, the en­er­gy of Car­ni­val, tra­di­tion­al folk­lore, moko jumbies and the re­silience of the Laven­tille com­mu­ni­ty con­tin­ue to shape his artis­tic voice.

“When­ev­er I chore­o­graph, I try to bring that same spir­it of joy, cel­e­bra­tion, au­then­tic­i­ty and com­mu­ni­ty to the stage,” he said.

De­spite his in­ter­na­tion­al suc­cess, Nurse re­mains ground­ed in grat­i­tude.

He speaks of­ten of the peo­ple who helped shape his path, be­gin­ning with his fam­i­ly.

“My moth­er has been one of my great­est in­spi­ra­tions,” he said. “She be­lieved in me from the be­gin­ning, en­cour­aged my pas­sion for dance and taught me the im­por­tance of re­silience, faith and per­se­ver­ance.”

He al­so cred­its Ed­in­bor­ough, Walk­er and Howard for help­ing him re­alise his po­ten­tial as both an artist and a leader.

For Nurse, the FI­FA Fan Fes­ti­val op­por­tu­ni­ty is about far more than per­son­al achieve­ment.

“This op­por­tu­ni­ty is big­ger than me,” he said. “It rep­re­sents my fam­i­ly, Laven­tille, Trinidad and To­ba­go, the North West Laven­tille Cul­tur­al Move­ment and the en­tire Uni­ver­Soul Cir­cus fam­i­ly. It rep­re­sents every per­son who en­cour­aged me, guid­ed me and re­mind­ed me that with hard work and ded­i­ca­tion, dreams can be­come re­al­i­ty.”

As he pre­pares to show­case Caribbean cul­ture be­fore a glob­al au­di­ence, Nurse hopes his sto­ry serves as in­spi­ra­tion for young cre­atives back home.

His mes­sage is straight­for­ward.

“Nev­er al­low your cir­cum­stances to lim­it your dreams. Con­tin­ue learn­ing, con­tin­ue grow­ing and re­main com­mit­ted to your craft. Tal­ent may open a door, but dis­ci­pline, hu­mil­i­ty and per­se­ver­ance will keep it open.”

For the young boy who first dis­cov­ered dance in Laven­tille, help­ing to cre­ate a FI­FA Fan Fes­ti­val pre­sen­ta­tion on the world stage once seemed unimag­in­able.

To­day, it stands as proof of what can hap­pen when tal­ent, op­por­tu­ni­ty and com­mu­ni­ty come to­geth­er.