Richard Alston has been making dance for 50 years and launched his Richard Alston Dance Company 25 years ago. Both these anniversaries deserve celebrating with a special programme full of trademark lyrical choreography, new lively dances and revivals of successful works. With the announcement of the company closing in 2020, this tour will also be the penultimate chance to see a live performance by what is undoubtedly one of the world’s best dance ensembles.
Associate Choreographer Martin Lawrance will premiere his new work Detour set to Michael Gordon’s pulsing Timber with costumes by Jeffry Rogador and lighting by Zeynep Kepekli setting off Lawrance’s customary fast paced style and complicated patterns through space.
This piece will accompany a celebratory revival of Proverb, one of Alston’s most telling choreographies, to the serene and cool vocal work of Steve Reich washing over intricately complex dancing. Created in 2006 as part of Reich’s seventieth birthday celebrations at London’s Barbican, this is the first time the piece has been revived.
Culminating the evening will be Richard Alston’s exciting new work Brahms Hungarian. The hugely popular Brahms pieces, music that Alston had planned on choreographing to for years, will be played live onstage by RADC’s outstanding pianist Jason Ridgway. Full of passionate drive and joyful gusto, the dancers are carried along by fast steps and an abandoned fervour. Costumes are by award-winning designer Fotini Dimou with lighting by Zeynep Kepekli, both regular collaborators of Alston.
Performance: Thursday 7th February 7.30pm
Venue: New Theatre, George St, Oxford OX1 2AG
Tickets: £13 – £26.90 Book online here
Find out more about the company here
Anton Du Beke and Erin Boag‘s new, show-stopping dance production, Dance Those Magical Musicals, is embarking on a major tour of the UK and Ireland for 2019 and will be performing at Oxford’s New Theatre on Friday 1st February.
The nation’s favourite ballroom couple present a world where Ballroom meets Musical Theatre with stunning costumes & breath-taking choreography, set to iconic theatrical music from shows including ‘Phantom of the Opera’, ‘Mary Poppins’, ‘42nd Street’, ‘Wicked’, ‘Top Hat’, ‘Hairspray’ and ‘Jersey Boys’.
Joining Anton and Erin live on stage will be the London Concert Orchestra with conductor Richard Balcombe, a sensational West End dance ensemble and the brilliant star vocalist, Lance Ellington.
The show will also feature the very popular ‘Q and A’ section providing some fun interaction with the audience.
Performance: Friday 1st February 7.30pm
Venue: New Theatre, George St, Oxford OX1 2AG
Tickets: Book online here
Find out more about the show and the performers here
First Look offers a first glimpse of the three works-in-progress by exciting dance companies that will be performed in full to launch the Spring Dancin’ Oxford Festival 2019 in the Moving With the Times showcase in March. Each work-in-progress run at this January preview will be followed by a Q&A with the artists.
Richard Chappell Dance with his new work Still Touch examines the relationship between dance and life-sized sculpture using his unique approach to ballet, improvisation, floor work and partner work.
Moon Dances is Jann Esterhuizen’s choreographic exploration of classical ideas and forms in collaboration with composer, Edward Farmer.
Joe Lott’s original brand of energising, innovative dance and storytelling, reveals two dancers take on micro-gravity and mythology in EVA, NASA-speak for spacewalking.
Moving With The Times – First Look is a Pay What You Can night. Book your place(s) online or through the box office in advance and pay on the night – if you enjoy the evening and can pay our standard ticket price – please do, if you can’t – pay what you can. The box office can’t take payments online so if you wish to pay any amount by card in advance, please call the box office and they will process your payment. Otherwise cash or card payments can be made on the night.
Date: Friday 18th January, 7.30pm
Venue: Pegasus Theatre, Magdalen Road Oxford OX4 1RE.
To Book: http://pegasustheatre.org.uk / Box Office: 01865 812150
Recommended for ages 11+)
NB: The final triple bill Moving With The Times will be at Pegasus on 1 & 2 March 2019.
Rick Guest’s stunningly beautiful photographs of Edward Watson vividly illustrate the impact on twenty-first century dance aesthetics of our renewed interest in the male body. On Friday night, in a conversation expertly chaired by dance critic Sarah Crompton as part of the National Portrait Gallery’s Friday Lates talks series, Guest described how he first came to photograph Watson as the result of a commission for The Economist’s Intelligent Life magazine. He was initially taken aback by how slight Watson seemed in rather flat light, then a sudden shaft illuminated Watson’s face, giving him the photograph he needed, and Watson the impetus to project his personality in response to the camera. (more…)
Oxford Dance Writers 