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Company number: 3724349
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Past programme
Showcases an eclectic range of fresh and interesting contemporary work, largely by emerging artists
The Sound
In an army barracks somewhere in remotest Europe, five people spend all day, every day, guarding a spot. They know nothing else. But as they each become convinced that they can hear a sound coming from somewhere near the barracks, their rigid, routine-filled lives slowly begin to fall apart.
The Sound is a searching examination of existence and fear.
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Imagined Landscapes
A selection of portraits and landscapes. The landscape scenes are strange and enigmatic: trees and pathways draw the viewer into the distance, leading them - who knows where?
Hofferer’s portraits are created from photographic sources. These faces are strong and powerful: more than just ‘personalities’.
Catharsis / Short Cut(s)
Sweet or Sour is the brainchild of performance maker and writer Tonny A. Specializing in contemporary performance as well as in experimental theatre, the company is passionately committed to delivering challenging collaborative or solo work that crosses over various art forms (from poetry to physical theatre to dance improvisation to multimedia) to revisit obscure or neglected historical eras and analyze the impact of history on individuals' reality, identity and physicality.
Catharsis
"I want the water to wash over me
Wash it all over me
So that I can begin again
Wash away all my sins…
So that I can swim,
So that I can burn
So that I can crash again"
Catharsis depicts the personal quest of a disgraced man for his rebirth through a series of choreographed rituals and visual confessions. Blending live projections and introspective movements with ambiguous written and spoken words, this performance art piece explores the themes of redemption while tackling the sensitive subject of self-esteem.
- Conceived, devised and performed by Tonny A.
- Photography by Sonalle
- Illustrations by Daishu Ma
- Sound Design by Nela Brown
Short Cut(s)
"L'enfer, c'est les autres" Jean-Paul Sartre
Short Cut(s)is a performance installation inspired by the ancient Greek and medieval theories of the Classical Elements. Referring to R. Altman’s film, Short Cuts, this experimental piece re-interprets some of D.H Lawrence’s existentialist poems through movement, spoken words and multimedia to explore the feelings of isolation, resistance and the constant fear of alienation experienced by five lost souls condemned to wander eternally in the Abyss. A cinematic episode rooted in an intense fusion of reflective soundtrack and improvised series of constrained physical imagery with surreal visual projections.
- Performed by Aysegul Asan Murphy, Patric Deony, Jay Nelson, Luke Putres & Bronwen Sharp
- Conceived and directed by Tonny A.
- Sound Design by Nela Brown
- Visual, lighting & costume design by Tonny A., Nicola Maddox & Daishu Ma
Daishu’s work has been linked with poetry, short stories, folk tales and performance art. Her illustrations explore the languages of story telling through constructing theatrical imagery that weaves together complex narratives, moods and human emotions. A graduate from Central St Martin’s she is currently working with projects in London and China.
Sonalle travelled alone for almost ten years through Europe, Asia and Latin America observing and participating in the kaleidoscope of cultures and sights she encountered. She has worked alongside numerous successful photographers in New York and Paris, coupled with developing several diverse photographic projects in selected cities worldwide. Since her recent return to London, Sonalle has assisted Magnum photographer, Chris Steele-Perkins, whilst creating many thought-provoking and issue-based assignments that have raised public consciousness
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Take Me To Hollywood!
Two vibrant Swedish performers offer a unique show based on improvisation, virtuosity and luck. Spanning from rock and folk to hip-hop with such diverse influences as Bob Dylan, Outkast, Shakespeare & Ingmar Bergman.
A steaming hour of entertainment and laughter from the best Swedish cabaret duo ever. Probably.
Scandimaniacs is a Lecoq-trained company fusing physical theatre with music and improvisation.
Recordings
Click to play
- Hollywood Deluxe
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Pillow Talk
Pillow Talk, a new devised show, will rummage through the sheets, trace the notches on the bedpost and check underneath for monsters. As long as you leave the lights on.
Rummaging through the sheets, tracing the notches on the bedpost and checking underneath for monsters. Leave the lights on…
I Wonder…
The Divine Comedy
In The Divine Comedy we are faced with the afterlife, where man must re-judge his concepts of responsibility, trust and madness.
- Costumes: Tom Wennerstrand
- Dancers: Helen Brushett, Ella Knight, Filip Krenus, Ayanna Prevatt-Goldstein, Ted Sikström, Janine Streuli, Claire Suarez & Alex Wood
Just Don't
In Just Don't we enter a world where touch is forbidden, and we follow four couples’ journey into discovering if they can love each other without any physical contact.
- Costumes: Evdokia Veropoulou
- Dancers: Helen Brushett and Anne-Maarit Kinnernen; Filip Krenus and Claire Suarez; Ayanna Prevatt-Goldstein and Janine Streuli & Ted Sikström and Alex Wood.
- Photographer: Tina Engstrom
Polyamour Me
Polyamour Me presents us with a sexually deviant world, where one person is never enough.
- Dancers: Helen Brushett, Anne-Maarit Kinnernen, Ella Knight, Ted Sikström, Claire Suarez & Alex Wood
Press
Blue Case
Ink-Prince-Kampantoman
Ink-Prince-Kampantoman Three solo pieces based on story-telling. Surreal-psychological stories are told by a recorded voice and interpreted by an abstract movement language.
- Choreography text & performance: Angela Blumberg
- Music: Augusto Monk
Essence
The essence of a relationship between two people is that passion evaporates and its imprint on both of them stays. ‘Essence’ is expressed by using contact improvisation & contemporary dance, and by drawing from dancers’ personalities.
- Choreography: Anita van de Watering
- Dancer: Aedin Walsh & Katherine Cooper
- Music: Bob Peachy
I.Standing Woman Dressed in Black II.Seated Female Wearing Dark Dress III.Kneeling Woman in Underwear, Front View (2007)
"Body, Sound, and Image: moments of anticipation, imminence…at times with fear, at others with a sense of incapacity, impossibility…"
A haunting, intuitive and insightful solo, expressive of inner states, reminiscences and drawing from diverse influences of film and sound. The audience is drawn into and invited to witness the journey of the character on stage.
- Choreography & Performance: Vanessa Abreu
- Music: 'Tenacity' by Matthew Orange
- Musicians: Maral Mohammadi (cello), Matthew Orange (bassoon) & Noura Sanatian (violin)
- Text: Excerpts of Memorias com Mar by Francisco Fernandez.
- Voices by Nuno Pires & Vanessa Abreu
- Design: Vanessa Abreu & Andrej Gubanov
The Duchess of Malfi
Lazarus presents John Webster’s gripping and powerful Jacobean tragedy in a production using movement, visual art and an original score. Re-imagined in 1940s England, this dark and passionate play follows the Duchess’s tragic spiral of reputation, love and ultimately death…
London 1939, on the eve of war.
The Duchess, a widow, finds love in the arms of her servant Antonio: their dangerous love affair is played out against the darkness of a world that forbids them to be together.
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The Soldier With No Name
The Soldier With No Name is based on the story of French surrealists Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore - two female artists in a male-dominated world - and their resistance campaign against the Nazis in occupied Jersey.
Told through puppetry, dance, physical theatre and storytelling, the piece explores our ideas of identity and the relationship between art and socio-political change.
The Winged Cranes was created by Alle Valle in 2007 to explore themes related to identity and the relationship between art and social political change through the use of puppetry and physical theatre. TWC wants to open borders in society, through the stories of people, places and time. It is an open company that wants to work on specific projects with other artists through collaboration and mutual understanding.
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All Grown Up
All Grown Up features paintings and drawings exploring the experience of getting older and what it means to be a grown up.
Trunkated
Spring
Tal Jakubowiczova
Spring is known to be the first season, but we all know it comes after winter. This physical piece shows a woman between hopes struggling her way to spring.
Havisham
Aaron Paterson
Miss Havisham locks away her life and love in a house that is as grim and dismal as herself. Within this sanctuary and prison, Miss Havisham stagnates in memories as an eternal bride. In Havisham, Dickens’s heroine collides with her modern counterpart: Aaron Havisham. Aaron chains his love life to his untrustworthy laptop, which is as erratic and frustrated as himself. Taking sanctuary online, Aaron stagnates in cyber hopes and virtual dreams of every potential wedding. Justification for, and clarification of, the connection between adoration and isolation are sought and debated upon in the vocalised internal monologues of these two overlapping characters. Miss Havisham is a warning to a modern isolationist waiting to begin living life.
(In) Formalities
Silversmith Dance Theatre
Fanfares. Marches. Anthems. Speeches.
Combining innovatively expressive movement with live trumpet players - and a bunch of quirky characters - this comical piece explores formal events, and the aftermath of when nothing goes to plan!
I Am Nesia
Rosie Wilby
The 2006 Funny Women Finalist presents an excerpt from her 2008 Edinburgh Fringe show. This investigation into the human memory manages to combine spoof Greek mythology, games and beginner's neuroscience.
"A talented performer with a winning self-deprecating personality" Evening Standard
She's My Lady Bits
Sylvia Ferreira Dance Company
- Director/Choreographer: Sylvia Dos Santos Ferreira
- Dancers: Vanessa Abreu, Alex Hemsley, Rosie Pearman, Fiona Smith & Lorraine Smith
- Costume: Seema Iqbal
- Sound Designer: Dan Potter
An Ornery Tale
Shady Dolls
Fascinated with the grotesque, and employing a keen sense of the perverse, Shady Dolls conjure a world of distorted images: of femininity, of history, of lullabies and legends…
An Ornery Tale takes place both on and behind the stage of the kind of Victorian Music Hall which is rarely found today, and details the plight of sisters Minnie, Ruby and Constance Hately, who found fame and notoriety upon it.
The Sunflower and Behind Closed Doors
The Sunflower
by Lamb|da
- Choreographer: Clare Thurman
- Poet: Nathan Thomas
The Sunflower is a duet between choreographer Clare Thurman and poet Nathan Thomas, weaving together fragments of intimate, personal narrative to explore what happens when two people try to communicate with each other. The piece seamlessly blends words and movement, creating a spellbinding meditation on the human conversation: absence and presence, closeness and distance, and everything in between.
Behind Closed Doors
by Lo Commotion
- Choreographer: Jo Meredith
- Cast: David Cameroni, Katherine Kingston, Caroline Lynn, Franscesco Mangiacasale, Jo Meredith, Ted Sikstrom
Set in the aftermath of World War Two during an engagement party, 'Behind Closed Doors' explores the relationship of two returning soldiers.
Lo Commotion's young and vibrant dancers perform this narrative work to the atmospheric and romantic music of Rachmaninoff, Cole Porter and Jerome Kern.
Post-performance discussion chaired by Sean Bruno
Press
Soft Cuts
Jane Spencer – Pseudological Fantastica
by Sarah Turner
- Choreographer: Maria Korsnes
- Performer: Rebecca Evans
This body of work is an attempt to isolate a moment of transcendence: that fleeting moment in time at which limitation is exceeded, and instinct becomes heroic impulse.
The process of adaptation; fitting in to different conditions or developing physical and behavioural characteristics in order to survive, does over time become a repeat pattern or a constant that becomes established. If this repeat pattern or constant is exhausted, an opening for transcendence can take place.
A moment of genuine transcendence can be rare and difficult to identify, quantify, and qualify. This body of work is a way of attempting to embody this intangible fleeting moment into an appropriate form.
Oh Baby
- Choreographer: Hagit Yakira
- Dancers: Takeshi Matsumoto & Hagit Yakira
A duet discussing the relationship between a man and a woman who are totally manipulated and influenced by love songs, love movies, love letters and love images in art…
(photo by Julia Burstein)
In-tubed
by Etta Ermini Dance Theatre
- Choreographer: Etta Ermini
- Performers: Chelsea Greene, Durassie Kiangangu, Ziggy Lowe-Vidal & Elena Molinaro
Stuck together in a tunnel, four very different people decide to open up to each other under the pretence of spatial intimacy to reveal the abyss of their emotions…
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Toy Boy and Living With...
ACTING LIKE MAD is a young, London-based theatre company, which seeks to challenge theatrical form and content. The themes present in their productions aim to explore dramatic writing and test their audiences' perceptions of theatre. They aim to seek new ways of channelling the skill of acting.
Toy Boy
In Toy Boy we enter a world of cynics who use and abuse; and those who obey. Can real love still grow in such a dog-eat-dog world?
Living With…
Living With… tells the story of a man forced to move into a new flat with three hedonistic beings who torture him and each other. Will he be able to overcome his demons and learn to live with them, or will they beat the life out of him?
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Dr Samuel's Soothing Serum & (In) Formalities
SILVERSMITH DANCE THEATRE produces innovative and accessible dance theatre through artistic collaborations. The company’s work focuses upon human themes and narratives of a dark comedic nature, merging different movement styles with the theatrical to create thought-provoking contemporary work.
Dr Samuel's Soothing Serum
- Performers: Lianne Dixon, Danna Kolesarova, Chris Mead, Dusty Payne, Ianthe Wright
- Choreography: Lorraine Smith & performers
- Director: Lorraine Smith
- Composer: Nico Bentley
(In) Formalities
- Performers: Chris Mead, Dust Payne, Catherine Pinhorn, Fiona Smith
- Choreography: Lorraine Smith & performers
- Director: Lorraine Smith
- Composition/Musical Direction: John Chambers
Fanfares, marches, anthems, speeches and dry coughs…
This piece explores formal events, and the aftermath of when nothing goes to plan!
Relax. Cleanse. Micro-minerals. No more wrinkles. Soothe. Transcend Mortality. Detox. Digestive transit. Refresh. Healing herbal highs. Botox. Bifidus Actiregularis. Believing is feeling. Placebo effect. Revitalise. Empty. Inside.
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