2013 CLOUD DANCE FESTIVAL Set for Bernie Grant Arts Centre, Nov 15-17

Fresh from the relaunch festival in July, Cloud Dance Festival returns in November with Showtime, its first Arts Council-funded festival, which sees Cloud Dance Festival taking its first steps before its rebranding next year.

Showtime will be held on 15 - 17 November 2013 at Bernie Grant Arts Centre in North London.

Cloud Dance Festival is committed to selecting exciting and promising contemporary dance and ballet artists at all stages of their careers and from all over the country; in addition to companies from Liverpool and Newcastle, we will also be presenting a trio of works from Birmingham-based choreographers. As well as our special guests Avatâra Ayuso (Shobana Jeyasingh Dance Company), John Ross Dance, and Kirill Burlov and Dane Hurst (Rambert), our featured artists for this festival are John Ross Dance, Jo Meredith andSimfra Dance Company, offering audiences an extra opportunity to see their works.

Avatâra Ayuso is an Associate Artist of the European Center for the Arts Hellerau Dresden as well as a dancer with Shobana Jeyasingh Dance Company, however her works are rarely seen in the UK. In addition to Dalcroze, a solo created for herself, Avatâra will be presenting a premiere of Balikbayan, a new work funded by Arts Council England, supported by Pavilion Dance South West and performed by Rambert dancer Estela Merlos.

Kirill Burlov is a Latvian dancer and choreographer who has been dancing with Rambert since 2007, also choreographing regularly for Rambert's Seasons of New Choreography, international dance competitions and for the Latvian National Opera House. He regularly collaborates with fellow Rambert dancer Dane Hurst, winner of the Critics' Circle's Emerging Dancer of the Year Award and an emerging choreographer in his own right. Kirill will be presenting an excerpt of I Need To Go Home, which will be performed by himself and Dane.

John Ross is a promising emerging choreographer who has recently won the New Adventures Choreographer Award, which will offer him a year of mentoring and a showcase of his works to be performed in Central London in autumn 2014. Previously, John has been nominated for a Best Choreographer Award by What's On Stage for his work with Old Vic New Voices, and he choreographs regularly for Dance United.

Further highlights of Showtime include:

- Jo Meredith, a prolific ballet choreographer, whose work has ranged from Royal Opera House to Drew McOnie, and who is best known for her work with National Youth Ballet.

- Declan Whitaker, a final-year student at LCDS. In recognition of his choreographic ability, he has been awarded the Peggy Hawkins Scholarship Fund, and has had his work shown at the Royal Opera House as part of their in-house choreographic platform Draft Works.

- Johnny Autin, the recent star of highly-regarded all-male urban contemporary Dance Company 2Faced Dance, will be presenting the finished version of his new work Taksim Square Reloaded, which was premiered at Cloud Dance Sundays in July.

- Rambert Dance Company dancer Mbulelo Ndabeni will be presenting a new work, while his colleague Estela Merlos will be performing in a new solo by Avatâra Ayuso.

- an excerpt of Newcastle-based dance theatre choreographer and film maker Joelene English's latest work about the relationship between Sylvia Plath and TEd Hughes, commissioned by Dance City, with an early draft performed at The Place as part of Touch Wood.

- As no Cloud Dance Festival is complete without a performance by Liverpool-based company Taciturn, they will be presenting an extract of their latest work Femme.

Past Cloud Dance Festival participants have included Ballet Black, James Cousins, James Wilton, Joss Arnott, Mavin Khoo, Drew McOnie, Tommy Franzén, Kristen McNally, Jonathan Goddard and Gemma Nixon, and we are confident that many of these artists will follow in their footsteps on their way onwards and upwards

As part of our growth, Cloud Dance Festival has launched a programme of professional development workshops in partnership with IdeasTap for emerging dance writers, photographers and videographers during the three days of Showtime. The dance writing workshops are in partnership with English National Ballet and A Younger Theatre and will be taught by Donald Hutera and A Younger Theatre's Managing Editor Eleanor Turney; the dance photography workshops will be held by leading dance photographer James Rowbotham and supervised by dance photographer Cathy Martin, and the videography workshops will be taught by screendance professionals Anna Ramsay and Sabine Klaus.

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