The Place is delighted to announce its summer season, a programme brimming with inspiring and compelling live and digital performance. We are looking forward to a scorching summer of live performance, with highlights including Inscribed in “Me” by Work Place Artist Alethia Antonia, a triple bill from National Dance Company Wales and Fat Blokes by Scottee & Friends Ltd.
After a two-year hiatus, The Place is pleased to welcome back Resolution, our annual festival of choreography and new works, which will take place between 7 May – 10 June 2022.
The summer season will also see the return of A Festival of Korean Dance, which comes to The Place for a fifth year between 17 – 25 June 2022. This year’s festival showcases four choreographers at the cutting edge of Korean dance culture, with work from Jinyeob Cha, Bora Kim, Soo Hyun Hwang and Yun Jung Lee.
Each summer our final year undergraduate students work with artists to present new works over a single week. These events are a real celebration of the growth and work of our London Contemporary Dance School emerging artists.
“Our summer season includes shows that we’ve been waiting for two years to have an opportunity to share with audiences & many of them have been incubating & developing through the challenges of the pandemic. We’re excited to present a series of powerful solos by Nikki Rummer, Alethia Antonia and Lauren Potter (choreographed by Eva Recacha). Across the season, artists draw on dance to reflect on urgent questions. We are thrilled to be showing such a variety of brilliant artists this summer and look forward to seeing audiences at The Place.” The Place Programming Team
Highlights of the season include:
- Unbroken by Nikki Rummer, as part of London International Mime Festival (5 – 6 APR)
- Alethia Antonia’s powerful new work Inscribed in “Me” (9 APR)
- A triple bill from National Dance Company Wales (20 – 21 APR)
- Fat Blokes by Scottee & Friends Ltd. (28 APR)
SEVENS by choreographer Nina Rajarani MBE is a new triple bill of Bharatanatyam and Kathak dance with live music. The first work in the bill is Seven Snags, a fast-paced, rhythmic ensemble full of exciting dynamics and laced with challenging cross-rhythms. Seven Steps follows, with a duet by Nina Rajarani MBE and vocalist/composer Y Yadavan, based on ‘saptapadi’ (seven steps). With each step, the couple take a vow that is beautiful, simple and timeless. The final work in the triple bill is Seven Sins, a thought-provoking, nuanced piece questioning social norms, performed by the full ensemble of seven dancers and musicians (2 APR).
Unbroken is the debut solo performance by physical theatre and circus artist, Nikki Rummer. Told through the eyes of a daughter, Unbroken weaves fragments of memories into the body of one performer, as a dark previously buried secret surfaces. With dramaturgy by Lost Dog’s Artistic Director and The Place’s Affiliate Artist Ben Duke and performer and director Jim Manganello, in Unbroken Rummer combines a talent for storytelling and unique movement language inspired by her acrobatics, gymnastics and capoeira practice (5-6 APR).
“Rummer’s athletic tumbling is neatly showcased as if she is constantly saying to the men: anything you can do, I can do better” – Lyn Gardner, The Guardian (on Barely Methodical Troupe’s ‘KIN’)
ba(ME) by Julie Minaai sheds light on an intertwined journey of being both an immigrant in the UK and a minority artist in the dance industry. The film explores situational experiences of being a ‘model immigrant’ and adds to a dynamic conversation on immigration and diversity in the arts (Launches on The Place’s website on 7 APR and available from 7-21 APR).
Alethia Antonia’s ‘Inscribed in “Me’ is a visceral journey that explores the weight of personal, historical, and collective trauma through movement, voice and music. Questioning the complex experiences of Black womxn, it bears witness to a continuous pursuit to find healing and self-authorship (9 APR).
A fun, interactive dance performance with live music and digital projection, Squidge by Wriggle Dance Theatre takes a light-hearted look at our sense of touch and how it influences our everyday lives. Squidge is an immersive, shared experience for children aged 3-8yrs and their grown-ups, full of exciting textures for little hands which will delight and tickle your senses (12 APR).
National Dance Company Wales will present a triple bill, with work from resident choreographer Caroline Finn, Associate Artist Anthony Matsena and Andrea Costanzo. Ludo by Caroline Finn is a darkly funny and high-energy dance about the importance of play. Codi by Anthony Matsena is an energetic story about the strength in communities banding together during troubled times. One Another by Andrea Costanzo calls our bodies back to movement and joy as we gather and express ourselves in the theatre after time apart (20 – 21 APR).
A cabaret of life and near death, The Rest of our Lives by Jo Fong and George Orange presents two middle-aged lives in an eclectic, spontaneous, predictable and random decline where the struggle is real. Hopefully hopeful, The Rest of Our Lives is a night of dance, circus and games, with Jo and George armed with a soundtrack of floor-fillers, a book of raffle tickets and a sprinkling of eco-friendly optimism (23 APR).
Theo Clinkard’s first full-length duet work The Days invites the audience to share an encounter with two exceptional Finnish performers, Maria Nurmela and Ville Oinonen. Taking the form of a lifetime shared, this is a compelling duet about care, resilience and the desire for connection (26 APR).
Fat Blokes by Scottee & Friends Ltd. is the cult, award winning, sell out, sort of dance show about trying to fit into a world that says you’re too fat. Made by five fat friends who have never done this sort of thing before, in collaboration with Lea Anderson, Fat Blokes subjects you to their pent up aggression, love for riot grrrl and their ability to burp on command (28 APR).
Because I Can is a delicate dance solo by Eva Recacha in collaboration with 60 + years old performer Lauren Potter, and sound artist Alberto Ruiz Soler, visiting notions of power, memory and growing old. The piece is a poetic stream of consciousness where memories flow in and out of our grasp, leaving a delicate scent of nostalgia, futility and loss. In this introspective work, audiences are invited to witness the character’s chain of thoughts contextualised by the sounds and noises of the outside world (30 APR).
Undergraduate students from London Contemporary Dance School will perform their graduation performances in the theatre on 5 – 8 JUL. Four commissioned choreographers work with final-year students on the BA course to present three brand new works throughout the week. Commissioned choreographers are Becky Namgauds and London Contemporary Dance School alumna Anders Duckworth, Sam Coren and Anthony Matsena.
