Press Release: Sadler’s Wells presents nine shows of the Van Cleef & Arpels Dance Reflections Festival

[Jan McNulty]

Sadler’s Wells presents nine shows of the Van Cleef & Arpels Dance Reflections Festival    A programme of leading contemporary dance comes to Sadler’s Wells in spring 2022

Sadler’s Wells presents nine shows of the Dance Reflections Festival this March, including five UK premieres, in the first celebration of contemporary dance designed and supported by French High Jewellery Maison, Van Cleef & Arpels.      Performances take place from Wednesday 9 to Wednesday 23 March across Sadler’s Wells Theatre, the Lillian Baylis Studio and the eartH Theatre in Hackney. Additional shows will be presented at Tate Modern and the Royal Opera House.    Welcoming giants of the contemporary repertoire, Sadler’s Wells hosts one of its own productions, Neighboursby Brigel Gjoka and Rauf "Rubberlegz" Yasit, and showcases work by New Wave Associate Jamila Johnson-Small with When we speak I feel myself, Opening, as well as Mystery Sonatas by Rosas, a Sadler’s Wells International Associate Company.     Lucinda Childs’ Dance, performed by Ballet de Lyon; Christian Rizzo’s une maison, set around a spectacular roof in movement; BSTRD, a dynamic performance by Katerina Andreou, looking at the concept of free will though free movement; Boris Charmatz’s analysis of the infinite - infini, and his interpretation of drowsiness,SOMNOLE; and Gisèle Vienne’s This is How you will disappear, set in a large, naturalistic and ominous forest.    Sir Alistair Spalding, Sadler’s Wells Artistic Director and Chief Executive, said: “It is so exciting that we will be opening the Dance Reflections festival this spring. Devising this project with Serge, after a difficult time for our industry, has been a joy and at times a daring bet – and it turns out we have the same taste when it comes to dance! The festival will be a fascinating showcase for contemporary dance, from unmissable classics to tomorrow’s leading choreographers – and we can’t wait for it.”    Some performances will be presented in duos, with two shows on the same night consecutively in Sadler's Wells Theatre and later in the Lilian Baylis Studio.  Tickets are on public sale via www.sadlerswells.com.   More show details are below: Duo night: Neighbours & Dance on 9 & 10 March  Brigel Gjoka and Rauf "Rubberlegz" Yasit                                                          LILIAN BAYLIS STUDIO  Neighbours   Inspired by William Forsythe’s A Quiet Evening Of Dance  Wednesday 9 & Thursday 10 March  Tickets: £18    Neighbours is a raw, powerful collaboration by pioneering abstract b-boy Rauf “RubberLegz” Yasit and established contemporary dancer Brigel Gjoka, inspired by their time dancing in William Forsythe’s A Quiet Evening of Dance produced by Sadler’s Wells.    Both at the cutting edge of their disciplines, they’ve created a work that brings together their diverse expertise and draws influence from their Kurdish and Albanian roots.   A new choreographic language forms as Rauf & Brigel examine moments of transformation and contemplation at the crossroads of urban, classical and contemporary dance. Through their shared experience a simple truth emerges, that dance is part of being human.     A Sadler’s Wells Production     Ballet de Lyon  Lucinda Childs & Philip Glass  Dance   Wednesday 9 & Thursday 10 March  Tickets: £15 - £37  Dance, created in 1979, is often considered the pinnacle of post-modern dance choreography. The minimalist ballet marks the first major collaboration of Lucinda Childs with the composer Philip Glass and is a must-see event for every contemporary dance fan.     Initially set against the backdrop of Sol Lewitt’s film, this production builds on the original piece with a new film featuring Ballet de Lyon’s own cast. It was re-shot by director Marie-Hélène Rebois in 2016, and this show has not been performed live in London yet.    Interpreted by seventeen dancers in a series of glissades, sauts and pirouettes, the dance explores the repetitive and progressively shifting patterns of the score.       Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker,                                                                                          EartH Theatre  Amandine Beyer / Rosas, Gli Incogniti     Mystery Sonatas                                                   Thursday 10 & Friday 11 March   Tickets: £20  Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker examines the mystical and geometrical richness of Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber’s 15 “Mystery” or “Rosary” sonatas, in a choreography for six dancers.     Biber’s virtuosic sonatas are a musical translation of the Sacred Mysteries of the life of the Virgin Mary. Each movement is divided into one of three cycles: five joyful, five sorrowful, and five glorious. Intrinsically religious and narrative, they are at the same time an invitation to dance.     For this creation De Keersmaeker renews her collaboration with violinist Amandine Beyer, with whom she previously made Partita 2 (2013) and The Six Brandenburg Concertos (2018).     This work is dedicated to women of resistance —Rosa Bonheur, Rosa Luxemburg, Rosa Parks, and Rosa, the 15-year-old climate activist who died in the Belgian flooding of 2021.  Rosas is a Sadler’s Wells International Associate Company       Duo night: BSTRD and une maison on 12 & 13 March  Katerina Andreou                                                                                                   LILIAN BAYLIS STUDIO  BSTRD                                                                                                                                UK PREMIERE  Saturday 12 & Sunday 13 March  Tickets: £18  BSTRD is an energetic and minimalist solo performance featuring Katerina Andreou and a single vinyl turntable, based on the notions of impurity and transformation in which she explores the concept of free will.   The score, inspired by house culture, is a backdrop to an exploration of both political and poetic issues focusing on a bastardised figure.   Content warning: Loud music, intermittent flashing lights    Christian Rizzo  une maison                                                                                                                          UK PREMIERE  Saturday 12 & Sunday 13 March   Tickets: £15 - £37    Living space has always fascinated choreographer and artist Christian Rizzo. In une maison (a house) performers enter into a dialogue with a suspended monumental, mobile lighting structure, which functions as the architecture, the scenography and the light source of this hybrid theatre piece.    As the stage gradually becomes covered in earth, the house is a space where bodies circulate, murmur, resound. The company plays out encounters and conflicts, solitude and community.      Duo night: SOMNOLE & This is How you Will Disappear on 18 & 19 March    Boris Charmatz [terrain]                                                                                         LILIAN BAYLIS STUDIO  SOMNOLE                                                                                                                           UK PREMIERE  Friday 18 & Saturday 19 March  Tickets: £18    Boris Charmatz explores the idea of somnolence – the feeling of being on the brink of sleep – in a stunning dance solo.      Accompanied only by the sheer sound of whistling, melodies surface, blend and break apart. The relationship between the sound and the movement is in turn deliberate, halting, drowsy and acute. Charmatz invents an insomniac dance, a refuge of rhythms and refrains at the frontier between wakefulness and sleep.    Gisèle Vienne  This Is How You Will Disappear                                                                                           UK PREMIERE  Friday 18 & Saturday 19 March  Tickets: £15 - £37  Created in 2010 for the Festival d’Avignon, This Is How You Will Disappear is set in a large scale, naturalistic installation evoking an ominous, foggy forest with a sinister secret.    Three figures – a young athlete, her coach and a rock star – come together in an epic tableau that evokes the underlying battle between society and the self. The coach represents authority, upholding an orderly structure. The young gymnast typifies the beauty of culturally defined perfection. The rock star personifies the allure of anarchy.      Curious weather events soon rip through the landscape, disrupting space, perception and sensation and pitting the beauty of order against that of chaos.      Electro-alternative music will be performed live by long-time collaborative artist Stephen O’Malley to accompany this epic performance.  Content warning: Contains themes of death, suicide, sexism. use of strong language and use of slurs (homophobic/sexist)      Duo night: infini & When we speak I feel myself, Opening, on 22 & 23 March    Boris Charmatz [terrain]   infini                                                                                                                                    UK PREMIERE  Tuesday 22 & Wednesday 23 March  Tickets: £20 - 25  Staged in an intimate configuration, numbers and counting set the pace and the theme for this remarkable work.    For centuries, dancers have counted to four, six, or eight, and then started over. In modern choreography, they may count in more complex ways, combining 13s and fives, but what would happen if they counted to infinity?     The performers mesmerize as they dance and count at the same time, in a test of memory and resilience. They count on the spot, backwards, towards the infinitely small and the infinitely large, alone or in unison, keeping the beat or standing in the face of time.       SERAFINE1369                                                                                                      LILIAN BAYLIS STUDIO  When we speak I feel myself, Opening  Tuesday 22 & Wednesday 23 March  Tickets: £18  SERAFINE1369 is the London-based artist and dancer Jamila Johnson-Small; one half of Sadler’s Wells New Wave Associate Project O.     When we speak I feel myself, Opening is a duet performed with Fernanda Muñoz-Newsome that seeks to give voice to sensations and impulses as they rise to the surface. A study in walking and weight-distribution, thinking about how we move with what we must carry, heaviness and lightness, light and dark, and the shifting perception of time.  Commissioned by Sadler’s Wells with the support of Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels.    A Sadler’s Wells co-production     ENDS

Notes to editors    Covid Safety      In order to help artists, audiences and staff members to feel safe and enjoy these performances, Sadler’s Wells has introduced a series of safety measures and is closely following all UK Government guidance in presenting these events. Ticket bookers will be sent full information about all coronavirus safety measures in advance of the performance, so that they may plan accordingly and feel as secure as possible during their visit. These guidelines are also available on Sadler’s Wells’ website via the following link, which we keep updated with the latest information, as soon as we have it. If these performances are unable to be presented due to changes to the UK Government’s coronavirus restrictions, customers will be contacted as soon as possible and given the option to receive a full refund. Sadler's Wells, alongside all companies performing in upcoming events, have also followed recommended UK Government protocols in order ensure the safety of all artists and crew involved by creating performances in a covid-secure environment.          About Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels  A devotee of dance ever since its origins, the Maison is today strengthening its commitment to the arts with Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels. Guided by the values of creation, transmission and education, this initiative aims to uphold the artists and institutions that showcase the choreographic repertoire, while encouraging new productions. Since fall 2020, the Maison has been supporting diverse performances at festivals, as well as several compagnies for their future creations.    Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels also organises an annual choreographic event in one or more cities within a single region. The first of these encounters, set to take place in London in March 2022, will be an opportunity to bring together an extensive selection of choreographic works. The programme, designed in collaboration with Sadler’s Wells, the Royal Opera House and Tate Modern, will explore dance from the 1970s until today.     About Sadler’s Wells  Sadler's Wells is a world-leading dance organisation. We strive to make and share dance that inspires us all. Our acclaimed year-round programme spans dance of every kind, from contemporary to flamenco, Bollywood to ballet, salsa to street dance and tango to tap.      We commission, produce and present more dance than any other organisation in the world. Since 2005, we have helped to bring close to 200 new dance works to the stage, embracing both the popular and the unknown.      Each year, over half a million people visit our three London theatres - Sadler’s Wells Theatre, Lilian Baylis Studio and Peacock Theatre. Millions more attend our touring productions nationally and internationally or explore our digital platforms, including Sadler’s Wells Digital Stage.     In 2023 we’re opening a fourth London venue in Stratford’s Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. Sadler’s Wells East will house a 550-seat mid-scale theatre, as well as facilities for the Choreographic School and Hip Hop Theatre Academy.       Supporting artists is at the heart of our work. We have associate artists and companies, which nurture some of the most exciting talent working in dance today. We host the National Youth Dance Company, which draws together some of the brightest young dancers from across the country.     Sadler’s Wells Breakin' Convention runs professional development programmes to champion and develop the world’s best hip hop artists, as well as producing, programming and touring groundbreaking hip hop performances.       Around 30,000 people take part in our learning and engagement programmes every year. We support schools local to our theatres in Islington and Stratford, designing experiences for children and young people to watch, explore and critically engage with the arts. We also run Company of Elders, a resident performance company of dancers aged over 60 who rehearse with renowned artists to make new work for public performances locally, nationally and internationally. Young people aged 16 - 30 can access £10 tickets to our shows through Barclays Dance Pass    Sadler’s Wells is an Arts Council England National Portfolio Organisation.         www.sadlerswells.com    Stay up to date with everything Sadler’s Wells on social media    Facebook: @SadlersWells    Twitter: @Sadlers_Wells    Instagram: @sadlers_wells    YouTube: Sadler’s Wells Theatre