There’s one problem with having had a great autumn season, including three world premieres, says DanceEast’s artistic director Brendan Keaney.
“We really did have a spectacular sell-out season, the challenge is you have to follow it with an even better one in 2016. I am delighted to report I think you will have a happy new year, as we have some seriously great shows coming up.”
Some of the world’s leading dance artists and organisations will be performing at the Jerwood DanceHouse on Ipswich’s Waterfront in the New Year. Highlights include a world premiere from Avant Garde Dance, the return of Mark Bruce Company and must-see new companies.
Spring is the perfect season to premiere new work, so DanceEast has brought its one night stand programme back; showcasing cutting-edge work and introducing new companies to Ipswich.
Ipswich girl Flora Wellesley Wesley and her new company Nora offer something a little different in the form of their contemporary work Nora Invites Aggiss, Burrows, Fargion and Tanguy.
If you like that don’t miss A Room For All Our Tomorrows from Igor and Morenos, who performed at DanceEast as part of PULSE Festival earlier this year and have recently been nominated for a Critics’ Circle national dance award for outstanding male performance (modern). Another part of said programme is Alexander Whitley Dance Company’s Pattern Recognition.
After sell-out performances of The Black Album in 2014, Avant Garde artistic director’s Tony Adigun returns with his company to present Fagin’s Twist - a hip hop take on the famous Charles Dickens tale Oliver. Mark Bruce Company, whose 2014 production of Dracula was also a sell-out, returns with The Odyssey which combines contemporary horror with fantasy.
Northern Ballet and Ballet Black usually play much larger venues than DanceEast. Both make their Ipswich bow in the venue’s intimate studio theatre. The first with their family production of Tortoise and The Hare and Ballet Black with a triple bill by Christopher Hampson, Arthur Pita and Christopher Marney.
There are also four community performance platforms.
The DanceEast Centre for Advanced Training and Performance Groups showcase their talents at the Spring Showcase. Shortly after DanceEast is hosting U.Dance East where groups from across the region are invited to perform with two chosen to represent the region at the national festival U.Dance 2016 later in the year.
Dance Springs celebrates the culmination of a two-year research and development project hosted by the University of Hertfordshire Arts and gives mid-career and emerging dance artists the chance to perform their work.
DanceEast’s annual community District Project brings together more than 200 performers from the Babergh, Mid Suffolk and Forest Heath districts, with dance artists Mary Davies, Lynnette King and Caroline Mummery, to create and perform Rock Paper Scissors at the Jerwood DanceHouse and The Apex in Bury St Edmunds.
Other shows include Encore Dance from Tring Park School for the Performing Arts; Digitopia from the Tom Dale Company in partnership with MOKO Dance; Vuelos from Aracaladanza in association with MOKO Dance and I Loved You and I Loved You from Sweetshop Revolution.
If you’re still feeling festive come January, Arthur Pita’s The Little Match Girl returns to DanceEast; where it had its world premiere in 2013. The show, which enjoyed a sell-out run at Sadler’s Wells last Christmas is based on the classic Christmas story about an impoverished young street girl’s hopes and dreams.
Shows can be booked now. Click here for more details.
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