Norfolk & Norwich Festival and Norwich Theatre are collaborating on a rich programme curated by both organisations and featured in this year’s Norfolk & Norwich Festival – an international celebration of dance and physical theatre.
Mosh created by Irish dance artist, Rachel Ní Bhraonáin will make its UK premier at May’s festival. Mixing live music, real interviews, dance, and text, the cast of performers will delve into the culture and characters of the mosh-pit over three nights at Epic.
An Accident / a Life, at Norwich Theatre Royal, is a special new collaboration between one of the world’s most sought-after choreographers, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, and dancer, Marc Brew that explores life-changing moments in their lives. The starting point of this movement performance was a car accident, in which Marc went from ballet dancer to paraplegic in a split second.
Greek dance artist and director Xenia Aidonopoulou brings a show for younger audiences to the Garage. Skydiver is a multi-sensory dance experience that soars family audiences through the fluffy clouds where flocks of birds and butterflies flutter.
Thomas Hardy’s classic Tess of the D’Urbervilles, at Norwich Theatre, is adapted for the stage in Tess by Ockham’s Razor. A thrilling, emotional blend of circus and physical theatre, Tess brings to life the life, loves and landscapes of Hardy’s heroine.
Norfolk & Norwich Festival’s work with communities around the region is brought to life in Fenland Elegy, a short and stirring film following the immensely technical and expressive form of Krump dance and shot at sunset in the Fens of East Anglia. The free screening takes place at The Forum.
Norfolk & Norwich Festival is the fourth largest multi-artform festival in the country. Through several national and international partnerships, it presents a 17 day celebration of performance, music, literature and visual arts each May. Seeking to ‘blur the boundaries’ between art forms, the Festival presents exciting genre-crossing work, particularly as part of its performance and music programmes.
Norwich Theatre has been growing the appetite for dance and movement-based shows in the city with Norwich Moves – a permanent season exploring storytelling where words are not the focus. Shows under the banner of Norwich Moves include productions presented and produced in partnership with Norwich Theatre’s regular artistic partners, such as Carlos Acosta, Matthew Bourne’s New Adventures, Rambert and Northern Ballet, as well as world-class and celebrated choreographers, dancers and artists from around the globe including through Dance Consortium.
“I am delighted that The Festival and Norwich Theatre are working in partnership to bring this extraordinary programme to our audiences,” said Daniel Brine, Chief Executive & Artistic Director of Norfolk & Norwich Festival. “Mosh is particularly exciting and so relevant to audiences right now. Working together, we’ve been able to curate an immensely varied programme of work that showcases how dance and movement can tell powerful, pulsating stories.”
Stephen Crocker, Chief Executive & Creative Director at Norwich Theatre, said: ”It has been remarkable to see such extraordinary appetite for new and different approaches to storytelling through movement from our audiences and how our Norwich Moves season is embedding a dance programme to rival any other UK city.
“We are pleased to bring this into Norfolk & Norwich Festival with a landmark production of a newly-shared story from a dance icon in an Accident / a Life and an imaginative retelling of an old story from one of the most exciting circus and physical companies in the UK today in Tess.”
Norfolk & Norwich Festival runs from Friday 10 to Sunday 26 May. The full programme will be announced in late February.
The on-sale dates for these shows are as follows:
Wednesday 31 January – Priority booking, Festival Friends & Supporters
Friday 2 February – General Public
Book online at www.nnfestival.org.uk or Telephone 01603 531800. Tess and an Accident / a Life are also available to book at norwichtheatre.org or 01603 630 000.
