In celebration of its 25th and last season of work, the Richard Alston Dance Company is embarking on an international farewell tour. The kind of endeavour you might normally associate with the break-up of a major band, or with Cher – who is perennially on her last tour, and I think has been saying farewell since at least the beginning of the last century, as is the whim of an eternal being. The scale feels only a bit different for Alston and his dancers. Final Edition: Oxford [1] is a culmination of many lives at work together, expanding the practices of modern, postmodern, and contemporary dance in the United Kingdom.

Because of his eponymous title the Etonian has a claim to canonical status and this tour could have become an overwrought monument to privilege and ego. Instead, what we witnessed in Oxford’s New Theatre on Wednesday night was a homage to a history of dance, branded, and shaped by Alston, advanced by collaborator Martin Lawrance, and most importantly, pulled off with immense style, presence, and love by a company of extraordinary dancers. (more…)

Richard Alston Dance Company’s Final Edition tour is part of their last season, the 25th no less, before the company sadly ceases to operate in April 2020.  Determined to go out with colours flying the Company has put together an exciting celebration of its unflagging creativity, with new works by Sir Richard Alston and Martin Lawrance, and also key works revived from the Company’s history, a richly diverse mix of dance and music.  Don’t miss their last visit to Oxford’s New Theatre because afterwards they really will be gone!

Final Edition includes: Red Run, set to Heiner Goebbel’s powerful music, evokes a terrain of shadows across which the dancers travel in nomadic clusters. Alston’s new Voices and Light Footsteps, is set to the sensuously expressive music of Monteverdi, genius of the Baroque.  Mazur, a duet to Chopin played live, offers an intense outpouring of longing for the composer’s beloved homeland.  Martin Lawrance’s new dance A Far Cry is set to Elgar’s impassioned Introduction & Allegro, and Isthmus (2006) to the intricate and delicate sounds of Japanese Jo Kondo.

‘The moment it ended I longed to see it again – immediately.’ ★★★★★ Culture Whisper

Performance:  Wednesday 22nd January, 7:30pm

Venue:  The New Theatre, 24-26 George St, Oxford OX1 2AG

Tickets:  From £19.90, book online here or in person at the Box Office

Find further information about Richard Alston Dance Company here

Kim Brandstrup’s residency at St Hilda’s last week was a rare opportunity to observe part of the process of creating new dances through a series of open workshops and two ‘showings’. When I crept into the Gallery of the Jacqueline du Pré Music Building on Tuesday the atmosphere below was quiet and studious. Brandstrup sat on the edge of the stage. Behind him, dancer Liam Francis was silently stretching, curling and extending his body, waiting his turn, while Simone Damberg Würtz and Tobias Praetorius used the specially-laid dance floor to work on a duet. It gradually became apparent that the dancers, the choreographer and cellist and composer Oliver Coates were collaboratively investigating questions about the relationship between rhythm, music and dance. (more…)