Category: News

Running at the Peacock Theatre from 9 June to 12 July, The 7 Fingers (Les 7 Doigts de la Main) is one of the world’s most inventive contemporary circus companies. Its production TRACES is critically acclaimed, following previous success, now being presented for London audiences. With the company hailing from Québec, this is renowned as the home of modern circus disciplines.

In TRACES, the cast combines traditional acrobatic forms with street elements, mixed with theatre and contemporary dance. The show takes place in a make-shift shelter, an unknown catastrophe waiting outside the doors. In the face of an impending disaster they have determined that creation is the only antidote to destruction. Performance skills include tumbling through hoops, scaling Chinese poles and balancing seemingly effortlessly on each others’ heads, to basketball, skateboarding and playing classical piano.

TRACES redefines the art of circus. It is a poetic, humorous and thoughtful form, and with the use of film clips, narration and a range of music from rock ‘n’ roll to blues and hip hop. First performed in 2006, TRACES has gone on to be performed over 1,700 times in 23 countries. The show has featured as a part of The Royal Variety Performance, played at the Union Square Theater in New York for a year and has won multiple awards.

It is now being presented at the Peacock, as part of Sadler’s Wells. Sadler’s Wells is a world leader in dance, committed to producing, commissioning and presenting new works and to bringing the very best international and UK dance to the stage. The theatre’s year-round programme spans dance of every kind, from contemporary to flamenco, Bollywood to ballet, salsa to street dance and tango to tap. Since 2005 it has helped to bring over 90 new dance works to the stage and its international award-winning commissions and collaborative productions regularly tour the world.

The Olivier Award-winning La Soirée is set to return to the capital this winter, for another residency in the Spiegeltent at the Southbank Centre’s Winter Festival. The strictly limited run will start on 27 October 2015 through to 17 January 2016 for the Christmas season, and will feature world class performers from across the globe. On Sunday 12 April earlier this year, La Soirée was awarded the prestigious Laurence Olivier Award for Best Entertainment.

The tantalising world of La Soirée is offering a phenomenal discount to fans, if they book tickets before 21 June. Ringside tickets for the jaw-dropping, awe-inspiring cabaret sensation are only £25 each if booked before this time. All standard tickets for November shows will also be £25 or less, with £10 off ‘Posh Seats’. From 22 June to 31 October, bookers can enjoy £10 off all ticket prices (except standing).

Before returning to London in the autumn, La Soirée will be continuing its world tour with dates in Australia, Denmark, Hong Kong and a stop off at a well-known festival first. La Soirée’s band of dazzling divas and cabaret royalty will be donning wellies and pitching tents in Glastonbury to headline Glastonbury’s Circus Big Top on all three nights of the festival. Promising festival-goers an electric start to the evenings, this will be La Soirée’s Glastonbury première.

Creative producer Brett Haylock is currently rounding up La Soirée’s dysfunctional family of new burlesque, circus sideshow and variety acts so the contemporaries set to entertain London from October can be announced soon. Southbank Centre’s Winter Festival with NatWest in 2015 – aside from the glamour and debauchery of La Soirée – will transform the Southbank Centre with performances and free events including choirs, festive art installations and lights, bustling markets and pop-up bars.

Mamma Mia!, currently playing at the Novello Theatre in the heart of London’s Theatreland, has announced its new cast starting from June. It appears there will be major cast changes; Mazz Murray will be joining the cast as Tanya, Jo Napthine as Rosie, Gabriella Williams as Sophie Sheridan and James Darch as Sky. Also joining the cast will be Louise Young as Ali, Stephanie Fearon as Lisa, Dan Partridge as Pepper and Rory Phelan as Eddie. Dianne Pilkington will continue to star as Donna Sheridan, with Richard Trinder as Sam, Alasdair Harvey as Harry and Charles Daish as Bill.

Mazz Murray is the daughter of songwriter Mitch Murray, and she makes up one third of vocal group Woman. As an actress, Mazz played Killer Queen in We Will Rock You at the Dominion Theatre for seven years, and other theatre includes Maureen in the UK tour of Rent, the UK tour and West End production of Fame and the UK tour of Smokey Joe’s Café.

An update for the ensemble also will see Tom Bowen, Adam Clayton-Smith, Jasmin Colangelo, Kate Coysten, Stephen John Davis, Katy Day, Olivia Kate Holding, George Ioannides, Alex Jordan-Mills, Craig Anthony Kelly, Sorelle Marsh, George Miller, Stacey Leanne Mills, Fergal McGoff, Ella Nonini, Katy Osborne, Robbie Scotcher, Brad Veitch, Caitlin Ward and Sasha Wareham also join the cast.

From West End to global phenomenon, the show tells the story of family and friendship unfolding on a Greek island, set to ABBA’s timeless songs. To date, it has been seen by more than 54 million people in 49 productions in 16 different languages, grossing more than $2billion at the box office. Mamma Mia! originally opened in London at the Prince Edward Theatre on 6 April 1999, before transferring to the Prince of Wales Theatre in 2004. The musical re-opened at the Novello Theatre in 2012 where it celebrated its 16th birthday on 6 April.

The 2015 West End Live festival is set to greet Londoners with a bang for another year running, taking place on 20 and 21 June in Trafalgar Square, and showcasing London theatre productions.

Casts from Mamma Mia!, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Sunny Afternoon will be featured as part of the festival, and will perform as part of this year’s West End Live, a complete treat for the musical theatre fans, passers-by and tourists that happen across West End Live in the summer.

West End Live is jointly organised by the Society of London Theatre and Westminster City Council, proving first-class entertainment in live shows in the Square. The other shows that are set to appear include Jersey Boys, Wicked and Beautiful – The Carole King Musical. West End Live will run across the entire weekend, with 2015 following the 10th anniversary of the festival in 2014.

The 2014 festival saw a fantastic theatrical line up of much-loved favourites and exclusive performances from the very best that Theatreland and London’s cultural institutions have to offer. Thousands of people gathered together to enjoy free performances from 25 West End shows, including unique appearances from The Royal Opera House Chorus, conducted by Placido Domingo, the English National Opera and an exclusive of Michael Flatley’s Lord of the Dance: Dangerous Games.

The West End Live 10th anniversary also saw old favourites take to the stage once more including Avenue Q, Chicago and Priscilla Queen of the Desert the Musical, all presented by Oliver Tompsett, huge highlights of the weekend for audiences. Also marking the anniversary was the hosting of the West End Live Theatre Emporium – offering an exclusive look into the world of theatre and drama, all housed in a beautiful 1920s Spiegeltent. With more for the 2015 festival to be announced soon, the festival looks set to match the excitement of last year too!

A Welsh pilot programme, amounting to £300,000, is set to develop new theatre for children by encouraging artists and companies to create theatrical experiences for families and young people for the first time. Whilst the UK capital is well-equipped in offering experiences of this kind to young families, this is now being encouraged across the rest of the country too.

Artists and companies working across the performing arts are being encouraged to create theatre for young people through a new three-year pilot programme. Cardiff-based Theatr Iolo will receive £310,500 from the Arts Council of Wales and the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation in order to run the project, named Platfform.

The project aims to explore new ways of creating these theatrical experiences for families and young people, and consequently widening access to theatre across Wales and the rest of UK. This is particularly poignant for children and families experiencing barriers to accessing the arts.

The first year of the pilot project will see up to three artists or companies developing their work in order to grasp the market of young people’s theatre for the first time, focused on particularly in venues across south east Wales. The three venues hosting artists during the first year will be Cardiff’s Chapter Arts Centre, where Theatr Iolo is resident, Parc & Dare in Treorchy, and The Welfare in Ystradgynlais.

The residencies at the three venues will culminate in new and innovative programmes of work, created especially with and for young people. The financial support of the new project will ensure that the venues and organisations are able to fulfil their aims. Support will also be provided in the form of a pool of mentors and a bespoke package of training. Applications for the development are welcomed from artists and companies for residencies of up to seven months.

The Hofesh Shechter Company has announced #HOFEST, its London season celebrating the diversity of the company’s work and artistic partnerships. #HOFEST will bring together work in September and October across four different venues; the Royal Opera House, Sadler’s Wells, O2 Academy Brixton and Stratford Circus Arts Centre. The four week long season will see the company collaborate with some of the city’s leading arts organisations and most iconic venues, giving audiences the opportunity to experience the breadth of the company’s work.

#HOFEST will be the company’s largest season of work in the capital to date. Through a vibrant programme of events and performances audiences will be able to explore contemporary dance in ways, and venues, that question the perception and push the boundaries of the art form.

The season begins with Shechter’s opera directorial debut with a new production of Gluck’s Orphée et Eurydice at the Royal Opera House, featuring the Hofesh Shechter Company. Simultaneously, the company will perform barbarians at Sadler’s Wells in repertory with its Royal Opera House performances. This brand new evening brings together the trilogy, barbarians, in the UK for the first time. Revealing his choreography at its most experimental and intimate, the evening will showcase the voice of the creator and the versatility and talent of his dancers.

#HOFEST will also bring Shechter’s critically-acclaimed Political Mother: The Choreographer’s Cut to O2 Academy Brixton for the first time. This extraordinary work with 40 dancers and musicians will bring the atmosphere of a rock gig to contemporary dance, creating an experience like no other. In partnership with East London Dance the new apprentice company, Shechter Junior, then returns from its European tour with deGeneration at Stratford Circus. The talented young dancers tackle two previous creations from Shechter, completing the evening with the UK premiere of an earlier work by Shechter, reworked especially.

The season will be complimented by a number of workshops and interactive events across London.

Northern School of Contemporary Dance will be arranging an exchange with dancers from London Contemporary Dance School, Salzburg Experimental Academy of Dance and Swiss performance company Le MARCHEPIED, bringing the aspiring students to Leeds for a unique opportunity. The dancers, most of whom will go on to perform all over the world as professionals, are privy to an experience that will both enhance and develop their studies as they prepare to embark on their dance careers.

Postgraduate Connections, the name of the exchange programme at Northern School of Contemporary Dance, will see the dancers from London Contemporary Dance School, Salzburg Experimental Academy of Dance and Le MARCHEPIED perform at the Riley Theatre, Leeds, in May, creating a semi-permanent cultural hub for the city. The exchange, now in its third year, builds relationships between the schools, artists and choreographers in order to widen the opportunities and experiences open to graduate dancers internationally. Students and dancers at the participating organisations benefit over the course of an academic year from a range of professional classes, creative opportunities and performances that promote international collaboration and knowledge sharing.

The Postgraduate Connections programme is extremely important for young, aspiring students, as it enables enhanced learning, networking and performance opportunities for the young dance artists who are already in the process of building their careers. Past participants have found work through the connections they made on the programme, proving schemes and exchanges such as Postgraduate Connections are essential to help prepare dancers for professional life. Creating opportunities such as this programme is paramount to the success of dancers studying all over the world, but particularly for those in the UK who recently came under fire from leading choreographers for their lack of advanced training.

Taking place on Saturday 9 May at 7.30pm, tickets are available from www.nscd.ac.uk/riley-theatre and through the Riley Theatre box office.

To the delight of its fans, the classic musical production Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is being revived at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds later this year, ahead of a UK and Ireland tour. The show, which has music and lyrics by Richard M Sherman and Robert B Sherman (also responsible for the iconic musical Mary Poppins), is adapted from the iconic 1968 film by Jeremy Sams. The show was first seen in the West End in 2002.

http://youtu.be/ZTTzcXSLjhI

The score includes “Truly Scrumptious”, “Toot Sweets”, “Hushabye Mountain” and the Oscar-nominated title song; reviving such a classic show is a great opportunity for the creative team involved, as it is a thrilling challenge for anyone. Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is a brilliantly fun adventure story, filled with iconic songs and scenes that hold so many memories for so many early fans, and indeed the general public too (such as of the revered, feared child catcher), so to bring the show back to the stage is a big undertaking.

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang will open at the West Yorkshire Playhouse on 10 December (previews from 2 December) for a nine week season finishing on 30 January 2016. The tour will then open at the Mayflower Theatre, Southampton on 10 February 2016 for a two week run. Further dates and casting are still to be announced.

The new production is directed by WYP artistic director James Brining, with new choreography by rising star Stephen Mear and production design by Simon Higlett. The show will be produced by the West Yorkshire Playhouse and the touring consortium Music & Lyrics Limited, which includes venues such as the Birmingham Hippodrome, Wales Millennium Centre and Edinburgh Festival Theatre. The new production is set to delight and enthral lovers of the fantasmagorical film and introduce Chitty Chitty Bang Bang to new audiences too.

English National Ballet School’s 2015 Choreographic Competition will be live streamed on 19 May. The school will once again be working with English National Ballet School graduate and former English National Ballet dancer Andre Portasio, Executive Producer of ArtStreaming TV, to live stream this exciting event across the world. Following the success of ‘A day in the life of English National Ballet School’, which was watched live by over 6,000 people across 23 countries and viewed by an additional 15,000 thousand on demand, the school will be sharing the competition via live streaming.

As well as being able to watch all of the action, audiences will also have the opportunity to further interact with the competition through Twitter (using #ENBSChoreo) and by casting a People’s Choice vote via text. The school is presenting a thoroughly unique opportunity to engage further with the school, and the talents of their students as aspiring dancers. It will also be an opportunity of inside access to a showcase of the young, new and exciting talent of the choreographic world.

Arlene Philips CBE will stand as head judge for the competition, observing the work of the young choreographers of English National Ballet School. She maintains, following her own experience as a choreographer in the ever-expanding arts industry, that young dancers need opportunities like this, in order to develop their craft and to find a dance maker of the future.

This annual competition has grown in profile and endeavour in recent years, giving the students the opportunity to showcase their emerging choreographic talents, similar to English National Ballet’s Choreographics scheme each year. The competition will be performed in front of the prestigious panel of judges, also including Rambert’s Artistic Director Mark Baldwin and independent dance artists Kerry Nicholls, and lead by the highly respected Phillips. The live stream will be presented by Faye Barker, presenter and reporter for ITV News and ITV News London.

The winning choreography piece will go on to open English National Ballet’s Choreographics at the Lilian Baylis Studio, Sadler’s Wells in June.