SADLER’S WELLS ANNOUNCES NEXT PERFORMANCES AND NEW CONTENT FOR ITS DIGITAL STAGE

Sadler’s Wells announces the next four Face­book Premi­eres set for Digit­al Stage, its free online per­form­ance pro­gramme. Per­form­ances will be screened live on Fri­days at 7:30pm UK time via Sadler’s Wells’ Face­book page, and are then avail­able to watch on demand for sev­en days thereafter.

Artists and com­pan­ies per­form­ing include bal­let super­star Nat­alia Osipova, Taiwan’s Cloud Gate Dance Theatre, UK cho­reo­graph­er Alex­an­der Whit­ley, and Sadler’s Wells’ Breakin’ Con­ven­tion. Face­book Première dates and times are as follows:

• An even­ing with Nat­alia Osipova – Valse Triste, Qutb, and Ave Maria Fri­day 24 April at 7.30pm BST
• Breakin’ Con­ven­tion – The Jazz re:freshed Son­ic Orches­tra Fri­day 1 May at 7.30pm BST
• Alex­an­der Whit­ley – 8 Minutes Fri­day 8 May at 7.30pm BST
• Cloud Gate Dance Theatre – Moon Water Fri­day 15 May at 7.30pm BST

Bal­let super­star Nat­alia Osipova presents a trio of clas­sic­al and con­tem­por­ary works, show­cas­ing the ver­sat­il­ity and intens­ity that have been trade­marks of her stor­ied dance career. An even­ing with Nat­alia Osipova fea­tures Rus­si­an cho­reo­graph­er Alexei Ratmansky’s Valse Triste, spe­cially cre­ated for Osipova and Amer­ic­an Bal­let Theatre prin­cip­al Dav­id Hall­berg, along­side Ave Maria by Japan­ese cho­reo­graph­er Yuka Oishi set to the music of Schubert, both works ori­gin­ally fea­tured in Osipova’s Pure Dance at Sadler’s Wells in 2018. The pro­gramme also fea­tures Qutb, a work cre­ated for Osipova by Sadler’s Wells Asso­ci­ate Artist Sidi Larbi Cherka­oui in 2016 and per­formed with acclaimed dan­cers Jason Kit­tel­ber­ger and James O’Hara. An Even­ing with Nat­alia Osipova screens this Fri­day 24 April at 7.30pm and can be viewed via this link. Qutb is presen­ted cour­tesy of Illu­min­a­tions and Sky Arts.

On Fri­day, 1 May, the world’s biggest fest­iv­al of hip hop dance theatre, Breakin’ Con­ven­tion, looks back to its 2018 edi­tion, on the same week­end that this year’s fest­iv­al was due to take place. Renowned for show­cas­ing high cal­ibre and diverse rep­res­ent­a­tions of hip hop dance theatre from around the world, in 2018 Breakin’ Con­ven­tion fea­tured an innov­at­ive col­lab­or­a­tion with Jazz re:freshed, the pres­ti­gi­ous live jazz organ­isa­tion. Mark­ing both Sadler’s Wells’ 20^th anniversary, and the 15^th anniversar­ies of both Breakin’ Con­ven­tion and Jazz re:freshed, the part­ner­ship brought togeth­er musi­cians across jazz, hip-hop and bey­ond, provid­ing ori­gin­al sound­scapes and a score by Jason Yarde, to accom­pany five newly com­mis­sioned dance works. Artists and com­pan­ies per­form­ing rep­res­en­ted high­lights from past Breakin’ Con­ven­tion fest­ivals, includ­ing The Lock­smiths, The Ruggeds, Boy Blue, Ayanna Wit­ter-John­son and Mufasa, Tanaya ‘Ice’ Mar­tin and host Jonzi D, UK hip hop theatre pion­eer and founder of Breakin’ Con­ven­tion. The fol­low­ing day, Sat­urday 2 May, Breakin’ Con­ven­tion also presents a vir­tu­al fest­iv­al across its digit­al chan­nels, fea­tur­ing high­lights from past fest­iv­al pro­grammes, work­shops, talks, and well­being ses­sions, full details of which will be announced at a later date.

On Fri­day 8 May, Sadler’s Wells New Wave Asso­ci­ate Artist Alex­an­der Whit­ley presents 8 Minutes. Known for his ground­break­ing use of tech­no­logy, Whitley’s work com­bines film and dance in a breath-tak­ing jour­ney to the sun, in this unique col­lab­or­a­tion with sci­ent­ists from STFC RAL Space. This crit­ic­ally acclaimed pro­duc­tion, which premiered at Sadler’s Wells in 2017, fea­tures a spe­cially cre­ated score by the elec­tro-acous­tic music innov­at­or Daniel Wohl and an install­a­tion of high-defin­i­tion imagery from BAF­TA award-win­ning visu­al artist Tal Rosner.

World-renowned Cloud Gate Dance Theatre has vis­ited Sadler’s Wells for over 20 years, stun­ning audi­ences with its unique aes­thet­ic and cho­reo­graphy, most recently in Feb­ru­ary this year with 13 Tongues and Dust, works cre­ated by new Artist­ic Dir­ect­or Cheng Tsung-Lung, and found­ing Dir­ect­or Lin Hwai-Min, respect­ively. Set to Bach’s Suites for Solo Cello, Lin’s mas­ter­piece Moon Water was first per­formed at Sadler’s Wells in 2002. Inspired by the Buddhist pro­verb ‘Flowers in a mir­ror and moon on the water are both illus­ive’, mir­rors and gently mov­ing water gradu­ally fill the stage and reflects the dan­cers’ move­ments in a beau­ti­fully med­it­at­ive per­form­ance. Moon Water screens on Fri­day 15 May.

The Sadler’s Wells work­shop series for audi­ences to dance along to at home also con­tin­ues. This week, the fourth Com­pany of Eld­ers work­shop for older adults is avail­able on Wed­nes­day 22 April, hos­ted by New Adven­tures Res­id­ent Artist Paul Sme­th­urst. In the work­shop, Paul will focus on New Adven­tures’ sig­na­ture style of dance theatre, and will teach intro­duct­ory swing moves, along­side adap­ted cho­reo­graphy from Mat­thew Bourne’s much-loved pro­duc­tion of Swan Lake.

The fol­low­ing Wed­nes­day 29 April, Inter­na­tion­al Dance Day, the fifth Com­pany of Eld­ers work­shop for older adults is presen­ted by the Com­pany of Eld­ers Rehears­al Dir­ect­or Simona Scotto, who will lead a bal­let-based ses­sion. All Com­pany of Eld­ers Work­shops can be found online via the Sadler’s Wells Face­book and You­Tube chan­nels.

This week also sees the première of a brand-new screen dance film fea­tur­ing the Nation­al Youth Dance Com­pany (NYDC). Last sum­mer, NYDC toured MAD­HEAD, a new pro­duc­tion by the 2018–19 NYDC Guest Artist­ic Dir­ect­or Bot­is Seva, and this spe­cially com­mis­sioned short film, dir­ec­ted by Ben Wil­li­ams, is inspired by the full-length theatre work. MAD­HEAD sees 38 of the UK’s best young dan­cers fuse con­tem­por­ary dance, phys­ic­al theatre, hip-hop, and Seva’s unique cho­reo­graph­ic style com­bin­ing with the dan­cers’ energy and tal­ent, to pro­duce a unique and exhil­ar­at­ing film. MAD­HEAD is avail­able to watch on demand via Sadler’s Wells You­Tube page.

Fur­ther details, includ­ing all titles, dates and screen­ing times, will be announced via Sadler’s Wells’ social media chan­nels, and updated via this link on the Sadler’s Wells web­site: https://www.sadlerswells.com/whats-on/2020/digital-stage.

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Rishma Dhaliwal

Edit­or / PR Con­sult­ant at No Bounds

Rishma Dhali­w­al has extens­ive exper­i­ence study­ing and work­ing in the music and media industry. Hav­ing writ­ten a thes­is on how Hip Hop acts as a social move­ment, she has spent years research­ing and con­nect­ing with artists who use the art form as a tool for bring­ing a voice to the voice­less. Cur­rently work­ing in TV, Rishma brings her PR and media know­ledge to I am Hip Hop and oth­er pro­jects by No Bounds.

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