Anjali Dance Company presents
GENIUS
A double bill of new work by award-winning choreographers Gary Clarke and Lea Anderson
From Symphonies to Vampires, Anjali explores the minds of Beethoven and Nosferatu in a gothic performance of dance, music, theatre and design
Anjali Dance Company announces Genius, a double bill of world premieres by award-winning choreographers Gary Clarke and Lea Anderson. Ahead of performances in Mexico and Spain, Genius will tour across England from Saturday 23 September to Thursday 9 November 2017.
Headed by its founder and artistic director Nicole Thomson, Anjali has been celebrating the creative abilities and artistic potential of people with learning disabilities and making high-quality, professional-level dance for over 20 years.
Through its innovative and pioneering work, Anjali engages the professional dance community in a debate about aesthetics, form, purpose and inclusion. In this new double bill, Anjali’s exceptional group of talented dancers – Hannah Dempsey, Daisy Garrett, Alex Hyde, Jason Manito, Nick McKerrow and Lauren Payne – perform two dramatic explorations of genius.
In a series of touching and darkly humorous short sketches, Gary Clarke’s Beethoven takes a look at the extraordinary personal life of Ludwig van Beethoven. The gothic, cinematic and highly theatrical choreography is performed to excerpts of Beethoven’s music.
Clarke, who recently won UK Theatre Award for Achievement in Dance and Best Independent Company at this year’s Critics’ Circle National Dance Awards for COAL, said: “Working with Anjali is a rewarding, inspiring and exciting experience. They are an amazing team of talented dance artists who are fully invested in the work and its creation. Each company member brought their personality, skill, and above all their hearts and generosity to the process, which has resulted in a strong, poignant and beautiful work.”
Designs are by Ryan Dawson Laight (recently Gary Clarke Company’s COAL, Boy Blue Entertainment’s Blak Whyte Gray and DeNada Dance Theatre’s Ham and Passion).
Choreographer Lea Anderson MBE is a hugely influential figure in the development of UK dance and has won many awards, including a number of Time Out & Dance Umbrella Awards and the Bonnie Bird Choreography Award.
Anderson’s new work for Anjali, Bloodsucker, is based on the legend of the vampire Nosferatu and his depiction in film. The 1922 silent movie Nosferatu is regarded as an influential masterpiece of cinema and is Rotten Tomatoes’ third-best reviewed horror film of all time.
In Bloodsucker, five distinct scenes become their own tales of horror, in performance styles ranging from expressionist, nuanced silent-screen acting to Hammer House of Horror action.
Lea Anderson, said: “I wanted to work with the Anjali dancers to create a new piece of work that would take risks with no possibility of predicting the outcome, something that would allow none of us to revert to safe or known methods. I look forward to working with these thoughtful and passionate artists again.”
Performing in a three-sided box, the dancers move on and off stage to create the impression of film edits. A specially commissioned soundtrack by composer Steve Blake, a long-term collaborator with Anderson, distinguishes the transitions between scenes and performance styles. Designer Simon Vincenzi brings a fairground and carnival theatre setting to life.
Nicole Thomson, founder and Artistic Director of Anjali Dance Company, said: “For the past decade, Anjali has been busy creating work in-house, as well as performing a national tour in the UK of work by Vincent Dance Theatre and New Art Club, delivering learning and participatory work and touring our youth dance company, Young Anjali. We have performed in Mexico, Germany and Spain, at the Special Olympics and at the Royal Festival Hall in London.
We are thrilled to be back on tour with new work by two established and respected choreographers, Lea Anderson and Gary Clarke. Genius celebrates the creative talent of Anjali’s exceptional dancers and demonstrates exciting new possibilities in dance.”
Anjali’s Associate Dance Artist Aya Kobayashi supports guest choreographers during the creative process and provides additional choreography for Beethoven. Kobayashi also choreographs for Young Anjali which was selected to perform at the prestigious U.Dance national showcases in 2010, 2012, 2013, 2015 & 2016.
The Genius tour is accompanied by a bespoke programme of educational residencies and workshops, some taught by company dancers.
Genius is supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England and commissioned by Lancaster Arts. Anjali Dance Company is supported by Oxfordshire County Council
Anjali Dance Company – Genius – tour dates 2017:
Newcastle: Dance City (PREMIERE and NATIONAL PRESS NIGHT)
Thursday 5 October at 1.30pm & 6pm
www.dancecity.co.uk / 0191 261 0505
Chipping Norton: The Theatre, Chipping Norton
Monday 9 October at 7.45pm
www.chippingnortontheatre.com / 01608 642350
Malvern: Malvern Theatres
Monday 16 October at 7pm
www.malvern-theatres.co.uk / 01684 892277
Plymouth: The House, Peninsula Arts at Plymouth University
Wednesday 25 October at 7.30pm
www.peninsula-arts.co.uk / 01752 585050
Bromsgrove: Artrix
Wednesday 1 November at 8pm
www.artrix.co.uk / 01527 577330
Leicester: Attenborough Arts Centre
Saturday 4 November at 1pm & 4pm
www.attenborougharts.com / 0116 252 2455
Leeds: Stanley & Audrey Burton Theatre
Tuesday 7 November at 1pm & 7.30 pm
www.theatreleeds.com / 0113 220 8008
Lancaster: Lancaster Arts
Thursday 9 November at 2pm & 8pm
www.lancasterarts.org / 01524 594151
International touring:
Barcelona, Spain: Sagarra Theater (FITI Festival)
Sunday 12 November at 8pm
Querétaro City, Mexico: IV Festival Oxímoron 2017
Saturday 25 November
Puebla City, Mexico: venue tbc
Sunday 3 December
Age suitability: 8 years+ // Duration: 1 hour plus 20 minute interval // #AnjaliGenius
Anjali Dance Company has created a radical new perspective for contemporary dance. In the past 20 years the achievements of Anjali’s dancers have won them acceptance as performing artists in their own right and their work has helped to change perceptions of the creative and artistic potential of people with learning disabilities.
Anjali’s dancers have worked with some of the UK’s most incisive choreographers, including Claire Russ and Matthew Hawkins, Charlotte Vincent and New Art Club, to create ground-breaking dance programmes which have been performed throughout the UK and abroad, from the Royal Festival Hall, Royal Opera House and Sadler’s Wells in London to venues in Mexico City, Berlin and Lisbon.
The company’s dancers have gained in personal growth, confidence and artistic skill and they have been central figures in advocating aesthetic diversity and equal opportunities for people with learning disabilities. They frequently speak at conferences and seminars and have appeared on television. http://www.anjali.co.uk/history/
Lea Anderson MBE has choreographed over 100 original works for her companies, the all-female The Cholmondeleys and all-male The Featherstonehaughs. Both companies were hugely influential to the development of UK dance, toured substantially nationally and internationally, and are still studied from GCSE to undergraduate level. Lea is now an independent artist, working with Welsh company Ladies & Gentlemen, which she co-founded with composer Steve Blake. Lea has won many awards including a number of Time Out & Dance Umbrella Awards and the Bonnie Bird Choreography award. She was made an MBE in 2002 for services to dance and has been artist in residence at The Southbank Centre, Critical Path, Sydney and the University of California amongst others. Lea is currently Regents Professor at UCLA (University of California Los Angeles), and working in partnership with the V&A museum, London and The Place on her Performed Exhibition of Costume (Hand in Glove) project.
Gary Clarke is an award-winning dancer and choreographer with a national reputation for creating compelling dance theatre that resonates with both audiences and critics. He has worked with many companies including The Cholmondeleys and The Featherstonehaughs, Matthew Bourne’s Adventures in Motion Pictures, DV8, Candoco Dance Company, Phoenix Dance Theatre, Sadler’s Wells and Opera North. Gary Clarke Company has been making work for the past 10 years, which has toured both nationally and internationally receiving critical and audience acclaim. The award winning and critically acclaimed COAL toured to mid-scale venues across the UK in 2016 & 2017. Gary Clarke Company was named Best Independent Company at the prestigious Critics’ Circle National Dance Awards in 2016. Gary’s work has also featured in British Dance Edition, the Edinburgh Festival, Spring Loaded, International Dance Festival Birmingham, The Cultural Olympiad and The Royal Opera House. Gary is currently an Associate Artist at Yorkshire Dance and is closely affiliated to Dance4 and Merseyside Dance Initiative (MDI).
Photo: Anjali Dance Company – GENIUS – photography Judie Waldmann
East Midlands Theatre. 