After a successful pilot festival in 2014, Wilton’s Strike! Dance Festival returns in 2016, to premiere six new works by emerging contemporary dance artists. Audiences attending – or instead, watching the live stream online – will be able to get a glimpse of promising performers and choreographers at the start of their artistic careers.
Taking place from 3-5 May at Wilton’s Music Hall, the theme resides around memory: the six selected choreographers have been commissioned to develop their work to performance level, with mentoring from professionals. Submissions were judged by a panel including Viviana Durante, former Principal Dancer with the Royal Ballet and Guest and Principal the world over; Critics Choice award winner, Jonathan Goddard, who has performed with Rambert, Scottish Dance Theatre and English National Ballet and founded the Dancespinner education project; and Lee Smikle, teacher, choreographer, producer and artistic director as well as Resident Artist with Matthew Bourne’s New Adventures and Re:Bourne.
The six works will be showcased in front of a live audience as well as being live-streamed worldwide, and an open Q&A session will follow the performances on each of the three nights. For 2016 the festival has also been extended, now including Youth Strike!, which will see a group of East London secondary school pupils choreograph and perform their own work, also on the theme of memory. The students – led by Jo Meredith and Sean Bruno, who created one of the pieces for 2014, will perform their pieces as a curtain raiser on the first night of this year’s festival.
In partnership with Eastside Educational Trust, a second school group will film rehearsals and their development to create introductory videos for each piece of work as well as working with ArtStreaming TV at the dress rehearsal to learn about live broadcasting.