Phoenix Dance puts it all together
- Robert Beale
- 8 minutes ago
- 2 min read
Phoenix Dance Theatre will premiere its latest mixed bill Interplay at York Theatre Royal on February 27-28, to launch a new tour (see below) culminating in four performances at Sadler’s Wells East in London in June.
The programme will bring together work by choreographers Travis Knight and James Pett, Ed Myhill, Yusha-Marie Sorzano and Phoenix’s own artistic director, Marcus Jarrell Willis.
Described as "a celebration of collaboration, placing dialogue, contrast and connection”, its four duet and ensemble pieces explore themes of duality and shared authorship.
Willis’s Next of Kin, from 2013, has been newly-reimagined for Phoenix. The duet explores the humour and tension between two kindred spirits, navigating life together.
Myhill’s Why Are People Clapping?! (restaged by Camille Giraudeau) is set to Steve Reich’s Clapping Music and uses rhythm as its driving force.
The choreography highlights the music of life – in a tennis match, footsteps in an empty street or the beat of our own hearts.
In Small Talk, by Knight and Pett, two figures inhabit a shared but distant space. The work reflects on relationships that fade over time.
The evening concludes with a new collaboration by
Sorzano and Willis. Inspired by ritual, meditation and the roots of hip-hop and house culture, Suite Release invites audiences both to witness and remember movement.
Marcus Jarrell Willis explained: “I’ve always found it intriguing to observe dual artistic expression – the ways two creative minds come together and collaboratively work towards one goal in creation, while maintaining their individual artistic expressions. The programme consists of different forms of artistic duality, through choreographic voices as well as the structure of the dance works themselves.”
The show can also be seen at: Leeds Playhouse (March 31-April 2; Liverpool Playhouse (May 8); Cast Doncaster (May 20); Lawrence Batley Theatre, Huddersfield (May 28); Theatr Clwyd, Mold (June 2-3); Northern Stage, Newcastle (June 16-17).
More info and tickets here