The Lowry in Salford has announced its dance programme for spring and summer, with the biggest draw almost certainly to be Strictly Come Dancing’s The Professionals (May 9-10).
The performance showcases the TV show’s 10 professional dancers – Dianne Buswell, Vito Coppola, Carlos Gu, Karen Hauer, Neil Jones, Nikita Kuzmin, Gorka Marquez, Luba Mushtuk, Jowita Przystal and Nancy Xu.
Another high-profile show is Message In A Bottle, a Lowry-co-commission by the Kate Prince Company (July 27-29).
Triple-Olivier Award nominee Prince (the director and choreographer behind West End hits Some Like it Hip Hop, Into the Hoods and Everybody’s Talking About Jamie brings a new dance-theatre show inspired by music by Sting, including Every Breath You Take, Roxanne and Walking On The Moon and features dance storytelling powerhouse ZooNation.
Matthew Bourne’s Romeo + Juliet gives Shakespeare’s timeless story of forbidden love an injection of raw passion and youthful vitality. Premiered in 2019, it returns to the New Adventures repertoire in a visit from July 11-15.
Akram Khan’s Jungle Book reimagined (May 13) is a dance-theatre retelling of Kipling’s classic in a near-future world, in which a family is torn apart as they escape a homeland ravaged by the impact of climate change. Arriving alone in a deserted modern city, with wild animals claiming the street "jungle" as their own, the child discovers unlikely allies. The show features an original score, 10 international dancers and state-of-the-art animation and visuals.
Much of the season's programme has international content. The Overhead Project, a German contemporary circus and dance company, is on its first UK tour with a show called What is Left? (March 20).
South Africa’s award-winning Dada Masilo and her company return on March 21-22 with the UK premiere of The Sacrifice, inspired by Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, combining the storyline of the revolutionary early 20th-Century dance classic with the movement of Tswana, the traditional dance of Botswana, to a live, newly-composed score .
The Korea National Contemporary Dance Company comes to the Lowry for two dates (April 24 and May 6), with a third show in the autumn.
In The Power (of) The Fragile (July 1), Tunisia/Brussels-based choreographer Mohamed Toukabri invites Latifa, his mother, with him on stage in a meeting of two worlds, two bodies and two minds. Latifa always dreamed of being a dancer, while Mohamed made it his profession. This performance is part of Shubbak Festival, the UK’s largest biennial festival of contemporary Arab culture, supported by The Lowry.
Another climate-themed show is from Bert and Nasi on April 26, with The End, a funny and poignant account of climate catastrophe, followed the next day by The Beginning.
And Mama (June 1-2) is the latest work from Olivier award-winning choreographer Botis Seva and Far From the Norm. It plunges audiences into a world in in which dark colonial secrets begin to see the light, and once-loved communities crumble.
There’s also youth dance, and dance for the young: U.Dance Regional North West, the regional youth dance platform, brings two evenings of exciting and diverse performances, on March 25-26; the National Youth Dance Company, with guest artistic director Wayne McGregor, unveils a new work on April 15; and Little Murmur, a new dance theatre show for everyone age 7+, arrives on May 7.
More info and tickets here