Dance Umbrella 2017

Posted on June 29, 2017

This year’s Dance Umbrella festival features artists including Rocío Molina, Lyon Opera Ballet and Charlotte Spencer Projects. The festival, which runs from October 11 to 28, will be working with eight new London venues, with performances taking place from theatres and town halls to an unfolding shipping container.

Satchie Noro and Silvain Ohl’s Origami (pictured) pairs a dancer with a shipping container, which is kept in continuous movement as Noro dangles from its sharp metal corners or glides on steep edges. The work will be performed at five outdoor locations.

Flamenco goddess Rocío Molina returns to Dance Umbrella and the Barbican Theatre with her new show Fallen from Heaven (Caída del cielo), while Charlotte Spencer Projects’ Is This A Waste Land? is a large-scale, immersive performance set on a piece of disused land in east London.

Guest programmer Freddie Opoku-Addaie will curate Out of the System at London’s Rich Mix, bringing together two live bands and dance companies from Africa, Asia, Europe and South America. There’s a programme of dance, poetry and film at Shoreditch Town Hall, while South Korean choreographer Eun-Me Ahn puts nine dancers into bright neon costumes, playing with ideas of identity and androgyny.

Let Me Change My Name, choreographed by and featuring Eun-Me Ahn. Photograph: Eunji Park

Lyon Opera Ballet present three different works to the same piece of music, Beethoven’s Grand Fugue opus 133. Lucinda Childs, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker and Maguy Marin take drastically different approaches, from cool classicism to whirlwind suspense.

For the complete programme, and to book tickets, visit danceumbrella.co.uk.

Top picture: Sauchie Noro in Origami. Photograph: Karine de Barbarin

Zoe Anderson

Zoë was born in Edinburgh, and saw her first dance performances at the Festival there. She is the dance critic of The Independent, and has also written for The Independent on Sunday, The Scotsman and Dancing Times. In 2002, she received her doctorate from the University of York for a thesis on “Nationhood and epic romance: Ariosto, Sidney, Spenser”. She is the author of The Royal Ballet: 75 Years and The Ballet Lover’s Companion.