September 2010 notes

Some of the dance highlights in town this month...

African Dance Encounter
9-10 September, 7.45pm
Purcell Room, Southbank Centre
Box office: 0844 875 0073. Tickets: £13
Info & online booking
African Dance Encounter is an exploration of traditional, contemporary and urban approaches to dance of the African diaspora. Culminating in two evenings of performance, this series of creative labs brings together three UK-based dance artists: Vicky Igbokwe, Alesandra Seutin and Nii Tagoe. The artists work together, sharing an eclectic mix of dance and movement influences from Ghana, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Belgium, the US and the UK.
www.southbankcentre.co.uk

Shoes
3-11 September
Sadler's Wells. Box office: 0844 412 4300
Tickets: £10 - £48
Info & online booking
Inspired by one of the great passions of the modern age, Shoes explores the gamut of footwear, from the highs of the Louboutin to the lows of the Croc. Composed by Richard Thomas, Shoes is a dance revue that sees life told from street-level perspective with wit, irreverence and affection. Shoes features choreography and direction by multi-award winning Stephen Mear. Alongside Mear, Sadler's Wells has invited choreographers Aletta Collins, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Kate Prince and Mark Smith to create dance numbers inspired by Thomas's songs.
View a video clip of the making of Shoes
Dance Talk 9 September
www.sadlerswells.com

The Place Prize
Previews: 9, 11, 14, 16 September
Semi-finals: 18, 21, 23, 25 September
The Place. Box office: 020 7121 1100
Info & Online booking
The Place Prize is the biggest single source of commissions for new short works in British dance. Over the course of four previews the first performances of all 16 commissioned artists will be shown. In the Semi-Finals audience members will be able to vote on each of the four commissions performing each night. The piece with the highest average score goes through to the Finals in April 2011.
9 Sep - Preview 1.  18 Sep - Semi Final 1
Pictured 1st row L-R: Dane Hurst, Freddie Opoku-Addaie & Frauke Requardt, Saju Hari, Vera Tussing
11 Sep - Preview 2. 21 Sep - Semi Final 2
Pictured 2nd row L-R: Raquel Meseguer & Ben Duke (Lost Dog), Henrietta Hale, Robert Graham, Simon Ellis
14 Sep - Preview 3.  23 Sep - Semi Final 3
Pictured 3rd row L-R: Conor Doyle, Darren Ellis, Eva Recacha, Vangelis Legakis
16 Sep - Preview 4.  25 Sep - Semi Final 4
Pictured 4th row L-R: Deborah Light, Drew McOnie, Rachel Lopez de la Nieta, Riccardo Buscarini & Antonio de la Fe Guedes
The Place Prize

Friday 10 September

Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo
14-25 September
Peacock Theatre. Box office: 0844 412 4322
Programme info & online booking
Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo (or 'The Trocks' to their friends) return to the Peacock Theatre with two fantastic programmes and a lorry load of costume changes. The Trocks' combination of pure comedy, extraordinary technical prowess and genuine love of ballet has made them a global phenomenon since they formed in New York in 1974. Both programmes offer a mix of much-loved classics and new, unseen works from the company's repertoire.
View a video clip of The Trocks
www.trockadero.org

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater
14-25 September
Sadler's Wells. Box office: 0844 412 4300
Info & online information
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater returns to Sadler's Wells with two programmes - both programmes feature the classic Revelations choreographed by Alvin Ailey.  
Programme 1: 14, 16, 19, 22, 24, 25 Sep, 7.30pm. 18 Sep, 2.30pm. 19 Sep, 4pm.
Suite Otis, The Hunt, Dancing Spirit, In/Side and Revelations.
Programme 2: 15, 17, 18, 21, 23 Sep, 7.30pm. 25 Sep, 2.30pm
Hymn, New Christopher Huggins and Revelations
View video clip
Dance Talk - 16 Sep
www.alvinailey.org

Live Vibe
18 September, doors 7pm, show starts 8pm
Lilian Baylis Studio. Box office: 0844 412 4300
Info & online booking
Live Vibe begins once again for its autumn season with a brand new theme, At the Movies.  15 Youth companies present work with a 'movie' theme with the best performances going on to be performed at a large venue in early 2011. In addition to the youth companies there will be a mix of professional companies plus acts from the worlds of spoken word, singing and fresh alternative acts.
www.sadlerswells.com

Saturday 18 & Sunday 19 September

River Tango Weekend, 18 Sep 12noon-7.15pm, 19 Sep 12noon-5pm National Theatre, Theatre Square. FREE Two days of glorious tango in Theatre Square as River Tango 2010 comes to the National with social dances, open workshops, live music and some silly tango from Strictly Dumb Prancing. For full details of the programme visit www.rivertango.co.uk National Theatre, Watch This Space

Lone Twin, Street Dance
19 September, 2.30pm & 5pm
Islington, near Sadler's Wells
Box office: 0844 412 4300
Info & online booking
The residents of a quiet street near Sadler's Wells invite you to join them for a bit of a dance. Through a series of personal and everyday stories about lives on their street, this community of 'non-dancers' welcomes you on to their doorstep, ready to show us how it is to live and dance together. Street Dance is created and directed by Lone Twin artistic directors Gary Winters and Gregg Whelan, working with choreographer Anna Williams. Street Dance is a playful and moving act of storytelling; using the local to describe the universal and creating a shared social space.
This is an outdoor walkabout performance, please dress accordingly.
www.sadlerswells.com

ROH2 - Will Tuckett, Pleasure's Progress
22-26 September
Linbury Studio Theatre. Box office: 020 7304 4000
Tickets: £19.50, £16, £13.50, £8 standing (£11 students)
Info & online booking
Pleasure's Progress  - A tale of sex! wigs! wags! 'n' bawds! - is a rip-roaringly enjoyable journey to the lust and depravity of 18th-century London, which takes its cue from William Hogarth's satirical and cynical portrayals in such famous tales-in-art as his Rake's Progress, Marriage A-la-mode, A Harlot's Progress and Beer Street and Gin Lane. This production is a single act of music, action and dance.
www.roh.org.uk

Rosemary Butcher, Festival of Miniatures
23 & 25 September - Dead Reckoning 
27-28 September - Dialogue with Lucinda 
1-3 October - Lapped Translated Lines  
Lilian Baylis Studio. Box office: 0844 412 4300
Curated by Rosemary Butcher, Festival of Miniatures presents four groundbreaking works including two new pieces by Butcher herself.
Philipp Gehmacher and Vladimir Miller's dead reckoning offers a panoramic view on events as it reconfigures the space inside four intersecting screens using projected film. Inspired by two of Lucinda Childs' works (Radial Courses and Interior Drama), Dialogue with Lucinda is a new piece by Nicole Beutler. Lapped Translated Lines is a collaborative piece with concept and choreography by Rosemary Butcher with filmmaker Daria Martin and architects Matthew Butcher and Melissa Appleton, in which the internal senses of performer Elena Giannotti are amplified using sound and video.
Watch video clips
Sadler's Wells

Friday 24 & Saturday 25 September

Bilbobasso, A Fuego Lento, 24 & 25 September 10pm. National Theatre, Theatre Square. FREE A man and a woman dance the tango amid sparks and fire; they are musicians, dancers, lovers and arsonists as their steps intertwine in a blaze. National Theatre, Watch This Space

Dance4 presents... Hetain Patel's TEN
25 Sep, 7.30pm - Rich Mix. Box office: 020 7613 7498
Rich Mix info & online booking
26 Sep, 7.30pm - Greenwich Theatre. Box office: 020 8858 7755
Greenwich Theatre info & online booking
I always thought counting to ten was easy...
Somewhere between Bolton, Barbados, Scotland and India three men, Hetain, Mark and Dave, make a journey of discovery. Taking music and the Indian ten-beat rhythm cycle as a starting point, this performance delves with endearing honesty and humour into the usually dry questions of cultural identity. TEN looks at the meeting place between the red dot on the Hindu forehead and the red cross on the English flag. Negotiating multiple and overlapping identities in Britain today, TEN asks what lies behind this need to belong?
Dramaturgy: Michael Pinchbeck. Choreography: Matthias Sperling. Performers: Mark Evans, Dave 'Stickman' Higgins, Hetain Patel
www.hetainpatel.com

Russell Maliphant Company, AfterLight
28-29 September, 7.30pm
Sadler's Wells. Box office: 0844 412 4300
Info & online booking
This new full evening work titled AfterLight contains the solo AfterLight (Part One) which was shown at Sadler's Wells in October 2009 as part of In the Spirit of Diaghilev. The 15 minute solo has now been developed into a full-length piece for three dancers. Using photographs of Vaslav Nijinsky and his geometric drawings as inspiration, AfterLight (Part One) was developed by Maliphant with lighting designer Michael Hulls and with projections evolved in collaboration with Es Devlin, onedotzero and animator Jan Urbanowski. It features Satie's music, Gnosiennes 1-4. The new work features music by Andy Cowton.
View video clip
Dance Talk - 29 Sep
www.sadlerswells.com

The 7 Fingers, Traces
28 September - 30 October
Peacock Theatre. Box office: 0844 412 4322
Info & online booking
Traces is circus with a distinctly 21st century edge. This brand new cast of five multi-talented performers display an extraordinary range of skills, from tumbling through hoops, scaling Chinese poles and balancing seemingly effortlessly on each others' heads, to basketball, skateboarding and playing classical piano. Snippets of the performers' real lives are revealed through film clips, narration and music.
View Traces video clip
www.sadlerswells.com

Vera Mantero
29 September, 7.45pm
Purcell Room, Southbank Centre
Box office: 0844 875 0073
Info & online booking
Internationally acclaimed choreographer Vera Mantero brings the London premiere of three solo pieces to the Southbank Centre. one mysterious Thing, said e.e. cummings*, was devised as an homage to Josephine Baker and is performed in French. Perhaps she could dance first and think afterwards is an improvised dance solo showing off Mantero's maturity and skill, while Olympia is a female take on Manet's iconic 19th-century painting of the same name.
*Please note this performance contains female nudity. Suitable for ages 16 and over.
www.southbankcentre.co.uk

Royal Ballet, Onegin
30 Sep, 2, 5, 6, 8, 9, Oct
Royal Opera House. Box office: 020 7304 4000
Info & online booking
The full company of The Royal Ballet are on stage for the drama and passion of John Cranko's Onegin. a full-length ballet that shows to the full the great storytelling skill of its choreographer and has a wealth of magical moments, from intimate solos to grand ensembles. At the heart of the story - taken from Pushkin's great novel Yyvgeny Onegin - are Tatiana and Onegin himself. Stage designs and music taken from Tchaikovsky in a specially created score bring vividly alive the world of imperial Russia.
www.roh.org.uk

Flashdance the Musical
24 September 2010 - 26 February 2011
Previews 24 Sep - 13 Oct
Shaftesbury Theatre. Box office: 020 7379 5399
Tickets: Preview prices £20.00 - £45.00. Then £20.00 - £55.00
www.shaftesburytheatre.com
Set in Pittsburgh, USA, Flashdance The Musical tells the story of 18-year old Alex, a welder by day and 'flashdancer' by night, whose dream is to obtain a place at the prestigious Shipley Dance Academy. This musical features an iconic score including Maniac, Manhunt, Gloria, I Love Rock and Roll and the title track Flashdance - What a Feeling.  Directed at the Shaftesbury Theatre by Nikolai Foster with choreography by Arlene Phillips and orchestrations and musical supervision by Phil Edwards
www.flashdancethemusical.com

Friday 15 - Sunday 17 October