Highlights include a world premiere from Avant Garde Dance, the return of Mark Bruce Company and must-see new companies!
Priority booking opens today for Friends, Best Friends & Patrons, and general booking will open on Thursday 26 November 2015.
DanceEast is delighted to announce a fantastic line-up for spring 2016. Under the artistic directorship of Brendan Keaney, some of the world’s leading dance artists and organisations will be performing on Ipswich’s Waterfront at the Jerwood DanceHouse in the New Year.
Spring is the season of new work, so DanceEast has brought back its One Night Stand programme to showcase cutting-edge work and to introduce new companies to Ipswich. This year there’s an added loyalty discount, which means the more performances you book for, the more you save (save 30% when booking all four One Night Stand performances). Pick up a brochure at the DanceHouse or visit danceeast.co.uk to find out more.
After three world premieres in a spectacular autumn season, there’s yet another from Avant Garde Dance this spring. Following sell-out performances of The Black Album in 2014, Avant Garde Artistic Director, Tony Adigun, returns with his company to present Fagin’s Twist, an innovative hip hop take on the famous Charles Dickens tale Oliver. Mark Bruce Company also returns, after a sell-out performance of Dracula in 2014, with The Odyssey, this piece combines contemporary horror with fantasy in an extraordinary dance theatre production and tickets will sell fast!
Two of the UK’s most popular dance companies, that usually play much larger venues, are coming to DanceEast for the first time in spring. Northern Ballet, with their family production of Tortoise and Hare and Ballet Black with a stunning triple bill by Christopher Hampson, Arthur Pita and Christopher Marney. The chance to see both of these companies up close in the intimate setting of the Studio theatre at the Jerwood DanceHouse will be a real treat.
For something a little bit different, local Ipswich girl Flora Wellesley Wesley and her new company Nora, perform Nora Invites Aggiss, Burrows, Fargion and Tanguy in April. If this contemporary work takes your fancy, don’t miss Igor and Moreno, who performed at DanceEast as part of PULSE Festival earlier this year and have recently been nominated for a Critics’ Circle national dance award for Outstanding Male Performance (Modern).
In February and March there are four fantastic community performance platforms. The DanceEast Centre for Advanced Training and Performance Groups showcase their talents at the Spring Showcase. Shortly afterwards DanceEast is hosting U.Dance East, where groups from across the region are invited to perform and two will be chosen to represent the region at the national festival U.Dance 2016, later in the year. In March, Dance Springs celebrates the culmination of a two year Research & Development project hosted by the University of Hertfordshire Arts, and gives mid-career and emerging dance artists the opportunity to perform their work. DanceEast’s annual community District Project brings together over 200 performers from the Babergh, Mid Suffolk & Forest Heath districts, with dance artists Mary Davies, Lynnette King and Caroline Mummery, to create and perform Rock Paper Scissors together at the Jerwood DanceHouse and The Apex in Bury St Edmunds.
DanceEast Artistic Director, Brendan Keaney, says: “The only challenge in having a great autumn programme, and we really did have a spectacular sell-out season, is that you have to follow it with an even better one in 2016. I am delighted to report that I think you will have a happy new year, as we have some seriously great shows coming up!”
Click here for more info and to book!
