OUTBOX and Shoreditch Town Hall today announce GROOVE, a brand new production featuring an intergenerational cast of queer dancers and actors and exploring the dance floor as a place of protest, identity, belonging and desire.
GROOVE is created by critically acclaimed OUTBOX whose work blurs boundaries, disrupts, challenges and delights. Directed by the company’s Artistic Director Ben Buratta, the production opens at Oxford House on 22 September, with previews from 20 September, and runs until 1 October, before performances at Contact, Manchester from 5-7 October. Full cast and creative team to be announced.
Ben Buratta said today, “I learned my history and understood my queerness through the exchange of older and younger bodies on the dance floor. In 2022, we see intergenerational meeting in queer spaces happening less and less. With a legendary cast of performers from the theatre, dance, and club scene, GROOVE explores how the dance floor can help us embrace our differences, exchange knowledge and understanding, and move together with power. We have created a captivating visual and sonic experience that blurs the edges of theatre and dance. We want our audiences to find that blissful feeling of losing yourself to the rhythm, whether that be sitting back and taking in the show or even finding moments to have a little boogie with us – whatever your age, experience or background we want to GROOVE with you.”
Supported by National Lottery Reaching Community, Royal Central School of Speech and Drama and Arts Council England.
Based on real stories and testimonies of LGBTQIA+ people across generations, GROOVE is a brand-new performance embracing what it means to be queer, then, now, and in the future.
Experience the mesmerising lasers and video, combined with the rhythm of era-defining and defying original beats, shapeshifting you through time and across decades. Prepare to leave it all on the dance floor… get ready to GROOVE.
Ben Buratta directs. Their theatre credits include And The Rest of Me Floats (Bush Theatre/ Birmingham Rep), Affection (The Glory), Hookup (Hackney Showroom), Outbox:Snapshots, You Could Move (Arcola Theatre) and Reach Out and Touch Me (Shoreditch Town Hall).
