Rehearsals are underway for National Dance Company Wales’ forthcoming Autumn Tour 2014 (27 September - 17 November) featuring a new addition to its touring repertoire, Tuplet by the much in demand Swedish choreographer Alexander Ekman.
NDCWales is the first UK Company to perform the work of this prolific choreographer largely considered one of the most exciting artists currently creating work on the international contemporary dance scene. National Dance Company Wales has long been committed to introducing the work of relatively unseen choreographers to the people of Wales and the rest of the UK, and this tour is no exception. The programme, touring to 3 UK venues with an international leg to festivals in Milan and Normandy, features work by Ekman, Stephen Shropshire, Stephen Petronio, Christopher Bruce and Lee Johnston.
Ekman will visit the Company in Cardiff in final preparation before it embarks on the tour, which features dates in Wales and England as well as two international dates; Festival Milan Oltre 2014, and Mortagne du Perche, France.
Ekman’s Tuplet, originally created on Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet, displays all the trademark elements of his work; fast paced timing, alongside innovative use of sound and composition and witty humour. Tuplet is a swift, pulsating, eighteen-minute tour-de-force for six dancers using a score created in collaboration with their own rhythmic impulses and employing their bodies as percussion instruments. This soundscape is integrated with original electronic music composed by Mikael Karlsson. The composition bounces back and forth between the live body sounds of the dancers and the recorded score in combinations of irrational rhythms and groupings, to stunning visual and aural effect.
On bringing his work to UK audiences, through a UK company Ekman said “I am very much looking forward to setting my work Tuplet on National Dance Company Wales. This is particularly exciting as it’s the first time working with a UK company and I am looking forward to the experience of presenting Tuplet to NCDWales’ audiences.”
The list of companies performing and commissioning Ekman's work is extensive; NDT, Cullberg Ballet, Bern Ballet, Norwegian National Ballet to name a few. However, this will be the first time that his work will be seen in the UK performed by a UK company. Hugely entertaining, Tuplet provides an ideal fit in what National Dance Company Wales aims to be a broad programme to suit a range of audiences across Wales and the UK.
Other works in the UK programme include Stephen Shropshire’s Mythology; a meticulously crafted work featuring powerful group movement sequences, brilliantly constructed to mind boggling detail and set to an avant-garde composition for piano, jazz ensemble and spoken word; and two works by the Company’s house choreographer Lee Johnston: Purlieus, a riveting and immersive melding of movement and lighting design, and They Seek to Find the Happiness they Seem, an exploration of the separation and disconnection occurring within a relationship, playing with the use of reconfigured snippets of imagery from popular culture to connect with the audience on a subconscious level. The international dates will present a broader rep, including UK rep with the addition of Stephen Petronio’s Water Stories, created for the Company in 2013 and Christopher Bruce’s tour de force Dream, created for the Company as part of the Cultural Olympiad celebrations in 2012.
NDCWales tours to Newcastle, Newtown, Milan, Mortagne du Perche, and Brecon. |
