Following the Grammy Award nominated success of INALA, a Zulu ballet performed with Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Sisters Grimm return with the tale of a water spirit from the Amazon River, who ventures deep into the rainforest in search of a cure for her dying sister. She soon finds that the forest is not as abundant as it was.
Award-winning American choreographer Helen Pickett, who has worked with the likes of Scottish Ballet and Royal Ballet of Flanders, fuses ballet, contemporary dance and capoeira with a lush musical score born of a collaboration with Brazilian songwriters and world-renowned percussionists, Olodum.
Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui’s interpretation of tango returns to Sadler’s Wells after its triumphant debut in 2013 and a world tour. Inspired by the late night milonga scene found in the intimate bars of Buenos Aires, Associate Artist Cherkaoui unites tango and contemporary dancers with live musicians in a unique collaboration which adds a contemporary twist to the Argentinian dance known for its seductive powers. With an incredibly talented cast of 17 performers, including an onstage band, m¡longa plays with the art form, making for a seductive and fascinating exploration of tango for the 21st century.
Scotland’s national ballet company returns with a double bill of two radically different, but equally powerful works. Sadler’s Wells Associate Artist Crystal Pite “one of the world’s most vital dance-makers” (The Times) transforms the 38-strong corps de ballet into a swarming horde of insects for Emergence – a journey into a subterranean hive where classical ballet transforms into strange insect-like behaviour.
Angelin Preljocaj’s MC 14/22 (Ceci est mon corps) is a hymn to the male body. Preljocaj evokes biblical imagery through the 12 male dancers who surrender to both tender care and wretched cruelty in this glorification of masculinity.
After publishing a book exploring the evolution of the female body, Sara now considers further issues - will pornography lead to our extinction? Are humans naturally bad? How do we become better? Do we really have to die? And gulp, should she have a baby?
As always Sara is honest and unflinching as she expounds on sexuality, empathy, art, God and pubic hair. If that sounds a bit weighty, there will also be stuff about selfies, glow worms and RuPaul 39’s Drag Race.
Sara has appeared on Live at the Apollo, Mock the Week, Have I Got News for You? QI, Room 101, Buzzcocks, 8 out of 10 Cats and a load of other programmes that can’t be listed due to word count restrictions.
Sara’s critically acclaimed book, Animal: The Autobiography of a Female Body (Faber Faber) will be available to purchase with a signing after the show.
Four time Brit Classical Awards winner Russell Watson has announced details of his 2017 tour, his first since the release of his new FOD album True Stories. Watson, the only artist ever to be No.1 in the Classical Charts in the US and the UK at the same time, will be performing songs from True Stories together with a selection of greatest hits from his illustrious career.
Richard Alstons newest creation comes to Sadlers Wells as part of a triple bill. Chacony is inspired by the richness and nobility of Henry Purcells slow and weighty Baroque Chaconne, and Brittens tribute to it. This extraordinary music will be played by an onstage string quartet. Martin Lawrences Tangent intertwines four couples as they attack the tango, accompanied by Piazzolla Estaciones Porteos, played live by Jason Ridgway on piano. Alstons hugely popular Gypsy Mixture, revived for the first time in a decade, brings with it a 21st century take on traditional Balkan folk music.
Tangent - Choreography by Martin Lawrance (25 mins) - live music with pianist on stage -London premiere. Interval of 20 minutes. Act 2: Chacony - Choreography by Richard Alston (24 mins tbc)/live music - String Quartet TBC/UK premiere. Interval of 20 minutes Gypsy Mixture - Choreography by Richard Alston (29 mins) - recorded music - Revival.
One of Rambert’s most celebrated works returns to Sadler’s Wells for the first time in 14 years. Ghost Dancers stalk the stage in Christopher Bruce’s masterpiece, created as a tribute to victims of oppression in South America. Day of the Dead celebrations and Latin American folk music drive dances full of joy, sadness and compassion.
Also in this triple bill (evening performances only), Didy Veldman reveals the tale of passion and betrayal behind one of Picasso’s greatest paintings in The 3 Dancers.
A new work by Aletta Collins to Arturo Marquez’s pulsating Danzones completes a programme of Lain-flavoured live music and virtuoso dancing.
Music by LEONARD BERNSTEIN
Book and Lyrics by BETTY COMDEN and ADOLPH GREEN
Based on a Concept by JEROME ROBBINS
New York, New York, it’s a helluva town!
With an incredible Bernstein score, Olivier Award-winner Drew McOnie - celebrated for his choreography on Jesus Christ Superstar - directs and choreographs On The Town, our biggest dance musical yet.
Count Arthur Strong brings you
The Sound of Mucus
Using stories and other things that are secret, Count Arthur Strong, showbiz legend, pays tribute to one of the best musicals he can remember. Uniquely recreating the salient and poignant moments for your enjoyment. Plus something else. Don’t miss this amazing event.
This spectacular show was inspired by the historical Battle of Currents between Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla in their quest for finding energy sources for the world.
On stage, we accompany a journey between two troops, each representing a different view of the essence of light and electricity and each inspired by a different aesthetic and artistic approach, all of which are presented as a dialogue, through unique sounds, lights, and visual effects.
The show combines a variety of elements: specially made musical instruments, massive video art projections including video mapping and eleven skilled performers in constant movement, playing on different instruments and musically juggling between different sounds.
Proving himself to be one of the best loved artists of our time, the tour will take in the length and breadth of the UK from Cardiff to Sheffield and onto Edinburgh. The thirteen night tour begins in Llandudno in April and finishing with in the spectacular London’s Palladium in May.
Last year Daniel had a busy year from putting his best foot forward with Strictly Come Dancing and to the massive success of the reality TV series Daniel and Majella’s B’B Road Trip.
Daniel made musical history and proved himself to be one of Ireland’s most hardworking singers, by releasing an album every year since 1988. This is something which remains unmatched even with music’s most longstanding stars like The Rolling Stones, Madonna and Michael Jackson. Daniel will have a tough time choosing which of his hits to play from his back-catalogue of 35 albums.
Now Daniel is back with a bang, having just completed five sold out shows at the INEC Killarney in Ireland, performing his revitalised show to over 12,000 enthusiastic fans. Such is Daniel’s popularity that fans came from as far away as the USA and Australia to see him in his Welcome Back Concerts.
Daniel’s shows are a constant sell-out, his two Irish Christmas tour dates in Dublin later this year, sold out in just 20 minutes, causing a third sell out date to be added.
If you can’t wait to hear him live check out Daniel O’Donnell’s latest album The Hank Williams Songbook which is still riding high in the Irish and UK charts.
Michelle Dorrance brings tap into the age of electronic music with collaborator Nicholas Van Young.
Tap has always been a way of talking to the stage, now with Van Young’s electronic tap boards, the stage is able to talk back, as every step, swipe, and scrape sets off an element of sound, building musical loops, turning the stage into a musical instrument in its own right.
With Afro-Brazilian, indie-pop, and even a bit of Adele triggered by the eight dancers fabulous footwork, ETM: Double Down takes the first American dance form to a new level.
Ryan Craig’s fiery new family comedy takes a closer look at the entrepreneurial outsiders who became part of the beating heart of modern Britain. Craig’s theatre credits include The Holy Rosenbergs and Our Class (both National Theatre) and What We Did to Weinstein (Menier Chocolate Factory). Hampstead Theatre’s Artistic Director, Edward Hall, has directed some of Hampstead’s biggest hits including Chariots of Fire, Wonderland, Rabbit Hole and the Oliver Award winning musical, Sunny Afternoon.
Sara Kestelman returns to Hampstead following her role as Clio in Tony Kushner’s sell-out hit The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures last year. Her other theatre credits include Girls (UK Tour) and Cabaret (Donmar). Film credits include Lady Jane. This production is kindly supported by the Filthy Business Giving Circle.
New York. A city that runs on ambition and coffee. In the offices of a notorious Manhattan magazine, a group of ruthless editorial assistants vie for their bosses jobs and a book deal before they’re thirty. But trapped between Starbucks runs, jaded gossip and endless cubicle walls, best-selling memoir fodder is thin on the ground - that is until inspiration arrives with a bang.
Branden Jacobs-Jenkins spins a razor-sharp comic drama about ambition, office warfare and hierarchies, where the only thing that matters is moving up the ladder and selling out to the highest bidder. Gloria was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for Drama in 2016. Jacobs-Jenkinsother plays include An Octoroon, which won the Obie Award for Best New American Play in 2014. Michael Longhurst’s directing credits include Amadeus (National Theatre), Bad Jews (Theatre Royal Bath/West End) and Constellations (Royal Court/West End/Broadway)
Imelda May has announced her first UK tour in over three years in support of her highly anticipated new album Life Love Flesh Blood due for release in March 2017. If you don’t know Imelda May, prepare to be amazed. If you are already a fan, get ready to hear her as you never have before. The truly unique artist has found a new groove, exploring blues, soul, gospel, folk, rock, sensitive acoustic, cinematic drama and explosive balladry on a set of the boldest, most personal and intimately autobiographical songs she has ever written.
Long celebrated by peers as one of the most sensational singers of contemporary music, Imelda May has made the album of her life. Produced by the legendary T Bone Burnett, the album was recorded in LA and features some of the most well renowned musicians in America (the same as on T Bone’s Alison Krauss and Robert Plant’s celebrated Raising Sand album) with guest appearances by long-time supporters; guitar hero Jeff Beck & piano maestro Jools Holland.
Taking the biggest band line up she has ever toured, the shows promise to delight both old and new fans of Imelda’s music. Featuring members of her long-time band with some additional finest musicians in the UK, the new line up brings the wonderful new material and old favourites to full colour whilst also showcasing Imelda’s unique ability to evoke the purest of emotion using her voice as her sole instrument. It is clear that one of Ireland’s biggest exports has found a new groove.