TELLUS | Dickson Mbi

Powerful. Personal. Connection.

Running time: Approximately 70 mins

Age guidance: 7+

Content warnings: Haze

“Mbi has created an exhilarating, epic piece which leaves you feeling that you could be watching the work of another Pina Bausch or Akram Khan or Matthew Bourne, or any of the modern choreographers who have turned contemporary dance into a superstar medium, knitting together artistic rigour with accessibility and broad appeal.”
– The List on Twice Born for Scottish Ballet (Oct 2023)

TELLUS begins with a simple, intimate act: award-winning dancer, choreographer and composer Dickson Mbi desires to tell his son a bedtime story. But this isn’t just any story; it’s an epic, drawn from the wellspring of his Cameroonian heritage, inspired by the mythical deity Mami Wata, a life source of beauty and love whose power can also turn to destruction.

TELLUS follows a young person, disconnected from Mother Earth, who is thrust into a village suffering a devastating drought. Guided by an Old Lady/Goddess, he understands a fundamental truth: humanity has forgotten how to worship and protect the land. His journey is our journey, a desperate struggle to heal a broken relationship and restore balance.

This vision is brought to life by eight dancers of global heritage, fusing intense physicality with ethereal grace. Their world is built by a creative team including video artists Yeast Culture, lighting designer Lee Curran, set designer Ruby Law, costume design by Debbie Duru and costume consultant Fay Fullerton, with sound design by Tony Gayle and an original immersive original score by Mbi himself, led by African vocals and Chinese percussion, transporting the audience from gentle lullaby to stirring chants.

Co-written with poet Nick Drake and with dramaturgy by Simon McBurney, TELLUS is more than a performance; it is a ritual to reconnect with the quiet, powerful source of everything – our Earth, our past, our mother.

Co-commissioned by Sadler’s Wells Theatre, Schrit_tmacher Festival and DanceEast, as a DanceEast Jerwood Commission. TELLUS is a ‘Developed with Complicité’ project – a strand of their Mudlarks Ideas Development programme. Supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England with additional support from Britten Pears Arts, RPS Drummond Lockyer Fund for Dance, Wise Music Group, and The Lowry.