Press Release: Neon Dance celebrates Piano Day with Wild Card at Sadler's Wells

[Jan McNulty]

 

WILD CARD: Neon Dance                                                                      
Thursday 22 March & Friday 23 March
Tickets: £17
Performances: 8pm, pre-show activities from 7pm
Ticket office: 020 7863 8000 www.sadlerswells.com

Wild Card returns with a bespoke evening curated by Adrienne Hart and her company Neon Dance on Thursday 22 & Friday 23 March.

Special guests from different disciplines feature in the programme as dance, live music, video and lighting design encounter each other in an event that forms part of Nils Frahm’s Piano Day, a creative international celebration initiated by the acclaimed Berlin music producer and pianist.

Collaboration is at the heart of every Neon Dance production, with Hart inviting artists from different disciplines to come together on a level playing field. Artists, collaborators and special guests feed into a rich evening of up close performances and live music encounters, with a special place given to the piano.

Neon Dance presents excerpts of Empathy, choreographed by Hart in conversation with Professor Simon Baron-Cohen (Zero Degrees of Empathy) and developed with an award-winning, internationally renowned team, with costumes by Ana Rajcevic, laser light design by the design collective Numen, and an original score by Danish band Efterklang in collaboration with Gyda Valtysdottir and Shahzad Ismaily.

Guest artists include Canadian composer and pianist John Kameel Farah, whose work embraces aspects of baroque and early music, experimental, contemporary classical, improvisation, middle-eastern music and forms of electronic music; composer and cellist Anne Muller, who is a regular collaborator with Nils Frahm; dance artist Maeva Berthelot, who has worked with Wayne McGregor and Hofesh Shechter Company; and award-winning Thai dance artist Pichet Klunchun, best known for his collaboration with Jerome Bel.

The pre-show offer includes an installation by artist Lily Hunter Green inspired by the declining bee population; Sebastian Reynolds DJing piano tracks on vinyl; and a video documentary about the creation process for Neon Dance’s Empathy.

Adrienne Hart said: "At the heart of my practice is collaboration. I'm fascinated by the process and what happens when artists from different disciplines share a room and commit to making a work together. My Wild Card will give London audiences an up close live dance and music experience and I've left some aspects of the night to chance. For example, John Kameel Farah and Maeva Berthelot will meet for the first time on the day of the show! There will be a few rules established then it's all about the two of them responding to one another and feeding off the audience on the night!" 

Adrienne Hart trained at Swindon Dance and London Contemporary Dance School. She works internationally as a choreographer and as Artistic Director of Neon Dance, which she founded in 2003. Her work has been commissioned and supported by Arts Council England, British Council, Creative England, Dance Digital, Modern Art Oxford, Glastonbury Festival, Royal Opera House, DanceXchange and Pavilion Dance South West, amongst others. 

Hart’s 2018 commissions include creating a new work for Company of Elders, Sadler’s Wells’ inspirational resident over-60s performance company; taking part in a symposium dedicated to the work of Arakawa and Madeline Gins at Arthur Ross Architecture Gallery (Columbia University, New York); and premiering new work Puzzle Creature in Japan as part of Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennial.

Neon Dance is currently resident company at Swindon Dance and Adrienne Hart is one of the selected artists taking part in Sadler’s Wells’ Summer University programme (2015 – 2018).

Eva Martinez, Sadler’s Wells’ Artistic Programmer, said: “Some artists are natural curators: they have a flair for choosing other fellow creative minds to try things out with. Adrienne is of them, she is naturally curious and gifted at finding ways to work with music, technology, and other cultures: she is passionate about music and how dance interacts with it. This idea is at the heart of her Wild Card, an evening half way between an intimate gig with an international piano star, a jam/improv session with exquisite dancers and a dance show where lasers are performers too.”

Adrienne Hart is a Sadler's Wells Summer University artist

Pre-show activities from 7pm

 

ABOUT SADLER’S WELLS
Sadler’s Wells is a world-leading creative organisation dedicated to dance in all its forms. With over three centuries of theatrical heritage and a year-round programme of performances and learning activities, its goal is to motivate everyone to experience dance – to take part, learn, experiment and be inspired. Audiences of over half a million come to Sadler’s Wells’ London theatres each year, with many more enjoying its touring productions at partner venues across the UK and around the world, or accessing its content through digital channels. 

Sadler’s Wells commissions and presents more new dance work than any other theatre in the world, embracing the popular and the unknown. Since 2005, it has helped to bring over 140 new dance works to the stage, many of them involving its 16 Associate Artists, three Resident Companies and four Associate Companies – the most exciting talents working in dance today. It also nurtures the next generation of talent through its artist development initiatives, and reaches over 25,000 annually through its learning and engagement programmes.

Located in Islington, north London, the current theatre is the sixth to have stood on the site since it was first built by entrepreneur Richard Sadler in 1683. The venue has played an illustrious role in the history of theatre ever since with The Royal Ballet, Birmingham Royal Ballet and English National Opera having all started at Sadler’s Wells. Sadler’s Wells is a charity and a National Portfolio Organisation, currently receiving 10% of its revenue from Arts Council England.

 

ABOUT WILD CARD
Wild Card is a unique initiative providing a glimpse of the rich variety of work that makes up the current dance landscape. Increasingly popular with audiences and artists alike, Wild Card opens the stage to an exciting and adventurous community of dance makers, giving a broad range of artists the unique opportunity to curate their own programmes of dance. These specially curated evenings feature exploratory approaches to choreography and combine different mediums, broadening audiences’ perspectives on dance made today. 

Wild Card is part of Sadler’s Wells’ programme of support for young and emerging dance talent, alongside other initiatives including the New Wave Associates programme, Sadler’s Wells Summer University and hosting the National Youth Dance Company.

 

ABOUT SADLER’S WELLS SUMMER UNIVERSITY 
Launched in 2010 through an open call, Sadler's Wells Summer University supports the development of professional dance artists interested in extending their practice. The first edition of the project ran successfully in 2010-2014 and Sadler’s Wells is now mid-way through the second edition which runs 2015-2018. Summer University offers dance professionals the chance to take part in a four year project, meeting for two weeks each year to share work, hear talks, explore methodologies and philosophies of performance making and extend their own practice through self-study and focussed interventions. The current Summer University artists are: Kwame Asafo-Adjei, Neil Callaghan, Theo Clinkard, Katye Coe, Nicola Conibere, James Cousins, Dan Daw, Antonio de la Fe, Adrienne Hart, Alexandrina Hemsley, Stefan Jovanovic, Stephanie McMann, Joe Moran, Patricia Okenwa, Katerina Paramana, Eva Recacha, Alesandra Seutin, Charlotte Spencer, Pepa Ubera and Marquez Zangs.

 

ABOUT PIANO DAY
Piano Day, an annual worldwide event founded by a group of likeminded people, takes place on the 88th day of the year – in 2018 it’s the 29th March – because of the number of keys on the instrument being celebrated. On the day and on the lead up it, several events take place around the world. The aim is to create a platform for piano related projects in order to promote the development of musical dimensions and to continue sharing the centuries-old joy of playing piano. Piano Day welcomes all kinds of piano lovers - young and old, amateur and professional, of any musical direction - to join in this year’s festivities. It is intended to be the most joyful of all holidays! Piano Day is initiated by Nils Frahm, one of the most talked-about musicians of his generation, at the vanguard of a new wave of composers and performers experimenting with instrumentation and technology. Blending classical composition with elements of electronica, his music takes influence as much from the percussive rhythms of the techno of his native Berlin as ambient music, post-rock and minimalism.