Press Release: Hussein Chalayan New Sadler's Wells Production

[Jan McNulty]

Sadler’s Wells presents Hussein Chalayan’s first dance work

 

 

Sadler’s Wells presents the first dance production by acclaimed fashion designer and artist Hussein Chalayan. Gravity Fatigue is a major new Sadler’s Wells production in the theatre’s Autumn / Winter 2015 season.

 

Gravity Fatigue receives its world premiere from Wednesday 28 – Saturday 31 October 2015, directed and designed by Chalayan working with choreographer Damien Jalet. Tickets for the Autumn/ Winter 2015 season are on sale from Monday 11 May, via 0844 412 4300 or www.sadlerswells.com.

 

Hussein Chalayan is an internationally renowned fashion designer and artist whose collections are acclaimed for innovative design, bold use of technology and elegant minimalism. He was named British Designer of the Year in 1999 and 2000.

 

Throughout his career Chalayan has partnered with musicians, actors and members of the design, art, theatre and fashion fields, including Tilda Swinton, Nick Knight, Antony Hegarty from Antony and the Johnsons.

 

In his practice as a visual artist his work is regularly shown in major galleries including Musée Des Arts Décoratifs at the Louvre, London Design Museum and National Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo.

 

In his first theatrical work, Chalayan combines the visual creativity of his designs and concepts with contemporary dance to bring to life a transformational imaginary world. Working with award-winning choreographer Damien Jalet, the production takes its inspiration from themes of identity and displacement.

 

Chalayan’s work has previously been seen on the Sadler’s Wells stage when his fashion show After Wordswas presented at the theatre in Autumn 2000. The show included some of his best known designs such as ‘the table dress’. The show featured a bare, white stage and contained 1950s-style furniture that the models adapted as clothing in the show’s finale and either carried or wore off the stage. Chalayan also designed the costumes for Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui’s Faun, part of the Sadler’s Wells production In the Spirit of Diaghilev in 2009. Chalayan has also designed costumes for Michael Clark’s current/SEE and Sasha Waltz & Guests’ Passionwith Pascal Dusapin.

 

Hussein Chalayan said: “I feel very honoured to be given this opportunity at Sadler’s Wells, to be able to extend my interests and world view into the realms of performance and dance. Fashion for me is a very important part of culture, however, in many cases clothes can limit the expression of certain ideas. This production will allow me to showcase ideas which I have been collecting for many years and to build narratives around and with the body in a much broader context than ever seen before in my work.”

 

Sadler’s Wells’ Artistic Director and CEO Alistair Spalding said: “It is in Sadler’s Wells’ DNA to support ground-breaking collaborations between dance makers and artists from other fields, so I was very excited when Hussein Chalayan accepted my invitation to take the artistic lead on the choreographic process in his first dance production. Both dance and fashion deal with the moving body and one’s sense of identity, and inGravity Fatigue the two art forms don’t just enhance each other, but are truly complementary in their delivery of the show’s concepts and, ultimately, of Chalayan’s distinctive aesthetic vision.”

 

Since becoming a producing as well as a receiving house in 2005 Sadler’s Wells 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.

 

Damien Jalet is a French/ Belgian choreographer and performer. Since 2000 he’s been working as the closest and most regular collaborator of Sadler’s Wells Associate Artist Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, with whom he choreographed Babel(words), which won two Olivier awards in 2011,  and Bolero, a collaboration with performance artist Marina Abramovic for Paris Opéra Ballet in 2013. Jalet’s work aims to make dance dialogue with other art forms, which led him to collaborate with high profile artist such as sculptors Jim Hodges, Antony Gormley, and Nawa Kohei; designers Bernhard Willhelm, Jean Paul Lespagnard, and Riccardo Tisci; director Arthur Nauzyciel; and musicians Fennesz, Florence and the machine, Ben Frost, and Ryuichi Sakamoto.

 

Pre-show talk with Hussein Chalayan (BLS-interpreted): Thursday 29 October 6 – 6.45pm, £4

 

 

The Monument Trust supports co-productions and new commissions at Sadler's Wells

 

Research supported by the Jerwood Charitable Foundation as part of Jerwood Studio at Sadler’s Wells

 

 

Listings information:

A Sadler’s Wells Production

World Premiere

Hussein Chalayan

Gravity Fatigue

Wednesday 28 - Saturday 31 October 2015   

Performances: Wed, Thur, Fri & Sat at 7.30pm

Tickets: £12 - £38

Ticket Office: 0844 412 4300 or www.sadlerswells.com

 

 

About Hussein Chalayan

Hussein Chalayan was born in Nicosia, Cyprus and graduated in 1993 from London’s Central

St Martins School of Art and Design. His degree collection was bought by British iconic boutique Browns, launching him as a significant new fashion force. In 1994 Hussein Chalayan started his own label. He was named British Designer of the Year in 1999 and in 2000.

 

In 2002, Chalayan moved his internationally lauded fashion show from London to Paris where the Chalayan collection is shown seasonally. The Chalayan collections are known for innovative design, bold use of technology and elegant minimalism. The ready-to-wear collection is regularly featured in top fashion magazines and international press as well as carried in the world’s best boutiques and is favoured by actresses, musicians, artists and tastemakers on and off the stage and red carpet.

 

In his art and fashion work Chalayan uses film, installations and sculptural forms to explore perception and the realities of modern life, with particular interest in cultural identity, migration, anthropology, technology, nature and genetics. Chalayan lectures regularly about his work and has exhibited in museums worldwide including the V&A in London, The Kyoto Costume Institute, The Musée de la Mode-Palais du Louvre in Paris, The Metropolitan Museum of Art and MOMA in New York.

 

He has directed several short films since 2003. Chalayan represented Turkey in the 2005

Venice Biennale with his film Absent Presence. In 2005, the Groninger Museum in the

Netherlands hosted a retrospective of his work. In 2010 Chalayan opened two exhibitions in

London at the Lisson Gallery and Spring Projects. Critically acclaimed solo exhibitions opened in London at the Design Museum (2009), the Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo (2010), Istanbul Modern (2010) and most recently at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris (2011).

 

Throughout the years Chalayan has partnered with musicians, actors and members of the design, art, theatre and fashion fields, including Tilda Swinton, Nick Knight, Antony Hegarty from Antony and the Johnsons, as well as with Scottish Dancer/ Choreographer Michael Clark for the 1998 production current/SEE and Sasha Waltz & Guests’ Passionwith Pascal Dusapin. He also designed costumes for Sadler’s Wells’ Production of Faun, part of In the Spirit of Diaghilev. He has collaborated with Swarovski on a number of shows including creating a range of motion dresses for the Spring/ Summer 07 Chalayan collection when the clothing changed silhouettes from one era to another.

 

In 2006 Hussein Chalayan was awarded an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honour’s list.

 

About Damien Jalet
Damien Jalet is a French/ Belgian choreographer and performer. Since 2000 he’s been working as the closest and most regular collaborator of Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, within Les ballets C. de la B., Toneelhuis and Eastman, performing in Rien de Rien, Foi, Tempus Fugit, Myth and TeZukA.

They choreographed Babel(words), which won two Olivier awards in 2011 (Best new dance production and Outstanding achievement in dance for the set design by Antony Gormley) and a prix Benois de la danse for best choreography at Bolshoi, Moscow. They also created Boléro together with performance artist Marina Abramovic, a new version of Ravel’s classic for Paris Opéra Ballet.

Jalet has developed a number of collaborations with high-level artists in different fields, including choreographers Erna Omarsdottir, and Akram Khan (he devised a solo in Desh); theatre director Arthur Nauzyciel; visual artists Antony Gormley, Jim Hodges, and Gabriela Fridriksdottir; and musicians Lady and Bird, Fennesz, Ben Frost, Florence and the Machine and Editors.

In February 2013 he directed the choreographic parcours les médusés in some of the greatest rooms of the Louvre museum in Paris with the participation of more than 30 artists from different disciplines. Recently he directed yama for Scottish dance theatre, the solo inked for kathak dancer Aakash Odedra, and Obsidian pieces for the Icelandic Dance Company.

In 2015 he was laureate at the prestigious Kujoyama villa for a residential research with sculptor Nawa Kohei and composer Ryuichi Sakamoto.

Damien Jalet has been awarded the title Knight of the Arts and Letters by the French government.

 

About Sadler’s Wells

Sadler's Wells is a world leader in contemporary dance, committed to producing, commissioning and presenting new works and to bringing the very best international and UK dance to London and worldwide audiences. Under the Artistic Directorship of Alistair Spalding the theatre’s acclaimed 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.

 

Sadler’s Wells supports 16 appointed world class Associate Artists, three Resident Companies and an Associate Company and nurtures the next generation of talent through its National Youth Dance Company, Summer University programme, Wild Card initiative and its New Wave Associates.

 

Located in Islington in north London, the current theatre is the sixth to have stood on the site since it was first built by 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 all having started at Sadler’s Wells.

 

Sadler’s Wells is an Arts Council National Portfolio Organisation and currently receives approximately 9% of its revenue from Arts Council England.

 

Gravity Fatigue is a major new Sadler’s Wells production and is one of the highlights of the theatre’s Autumn/ Winter 2015 season, which includes new work by Associate Artists Russell Maliphant and Michael Hulls, Hofesh Schechter and Akram Khan. The season also features two Wild Card presentations by emerging artists; a major retrospective of the National Youth Dance Company's first three years of work with pieces by leading choreographers Akram Khan, Jasmin Vardimon and Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui; and a revival of Matthew Bourne's Sleeping Beauty. Tickets for the Autumn/ Winter 2015 season are on sale from Monday 11 May, via 0844 412 4300 or www.sadlerswells.com.