Contemporary dance showcase Cloud Dance Festival lets down its hair for a second annual Cloud Dance Friends: a show which is part celebration of independent contemporary dance, part birthday bash, and partly because it's about time Cloud Dance Festival put on another show.
Cloud Dance Friends will be presenting eight works by Cloud Dance Festival's extended family: a mixture of artists who have previously been featured by Cloud Dance Festival (
Anna-Lise Marie Dance and
John Ross Dance),
Estela Merlos, who performed in our last Festival in 2013, and artists new to performing with Cloud Dance Festival:
Jason Mabana,
Elise Nuding,
Mike Williams,
Yukiko Masui and
Humanah Productions.
Award-winning choreographer
John Ross will be presenting a sneak preview of his latest work,
Blink, his first new work since his New Adventures Choreographer Award showcase in November 2014. Using themes from American author Mitch Albom's 'The Five People You Meet In Heaven',
Blinkwill be John Ross's first full-length work. John is currently a BBC Performing Arts Fund Fellow and supported by Swindon Dance and Artsdepot.
Former Rambert dancer
Estela Merlos, now a successful freelance dancer and independent choreographer, will be performing a new solo,
UKOK, which will be premiered at the British-Spanish Society Gala earlier in the week. Since leaving Rambert in 2014, Estela has worked with Didy Veldman, Shobana Jeyasingh Dance, Renaud Wiser Dance Company, New Movement Collective, AVA Dance Company, Patricia Okenwa, Goddard Nixon, Malgorzata Dzierzon and N'da Dance Company.
Yukiko Masui is a very versatile and sought-after dancer, working with a number of the leading independent contemporary dance companies as well as on TV and in music videos. Her solo
Unbox was premiered at The Place at the start of the year, and following high praise in Sanjoy Roy's review, it has since been performed at Donald Hutera's Go Live platform, at Birmingham Dance Network's Introducing showcase, and in Derry, Northern Ireland, as part of the Echo Echo Festival 2015.
Jason Mabana, a recent graduate of the Rambert School of Ballet and Contemporary Dance, is currently an apprentice dancer with
Shobana Jeyasingh Dance Company, having completed an internship with
Akram Khan Dance Company. Jason Mabana and fellow Rambert School graduate
Jacob O'Connell will be presenting
Hidden, the duet which Jason created for Jason and which both performed in at Sadler's Wells and on national TV as part of the BBC Young Dancer Competition earlier this year.
We'll also be featuring the London premiere of Cardiff-based
Mike Williams's solo
4.33, which has previously been shown at a number of platforms this year, including the Wales Dance Platform and Dance Forms's showcase at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
Our lineup will also include a reworked version of
Our Physical Intentions by highly-prased choreographer
Anna-Lise Marie Hearn for her company
Anna-Lise Marie Dance, and
I, Object, an intricate, inquisitive and exploratory solo by
Elise Nuding, who has been described by
Lyndsey Winship as "an artist who can create a distinctive and thoughtful space on stage".
We'll be finishing the show with
Humanah Productions' celebratory
Egress,described as "the night's most purely pleasurable experience" by Donald Hutera and as "good fun" by Claire Cohen following its premiere at The Place earlier this year.
This event also celebrates Cloud Dance Festival director Chantal Guevara's birthday, so please do join us for a drink before and/or after the show!
For further information or press photos, please contact Chantal Guevara at chantal@guevara.org.uk
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