IMPERMANENCE Announces New Home

After ten years, IMPERMANENCE, directed by Roseanna Anderson and Joshua Ben-Tovim, is set to take a major step change in delivery as they open a new home for dance in Bristol. Anderson and Ben-Tovim have just signed a lease for an iconic building in the centre of the city - The Mount Without, a Grade ll listed church which has undergone a £1 million renovation. IMPERMANENCE will share the diary 50/50 with a commercial partner who will focus on booking weddings and other profitable activities. This will subsidise IMPERMANENCE's usage of the space, representing an innovative arts/commercial hybrid model.

With a full programme launch planned for spring 2023, the company hope to stage a five-night run of a show from a different visiting dance company each month, as well as staging one new show of their own there each year. This will sit alongside training and artist development opportunities, giving audiences and dancers in the city a much-needed space to regularly watch and take part in dance.

Before then, in autumn 2022, IMPERMANENCE will present two new dance works in the space. 27 to 30 September sees the world premiere of It Begins In Darkness by Seke Chimutengwende. "It Begins In Darkness is an environment for processing the fear, anger and confusion which arise from the histories of slavery and colonialism that haunt the present." On 26 November comes Shuffle by Lea Anderson. "Designed around the iconography of club culture, Shuffle reflects the 'in the moment' experiences we build together with friends and strangers on the dance floor."

On 19 July, company director Roseanna Anderson will be presenting a new work commissioned by Messums Wiltshire at its new Festival of Dance. The piece Cosmic Yoghurt is a response to the life and work of British Surrealist Leonora Carrington created in collaboration with designer Pam Tait and folk musician Nick Hart.

At the end of August, IMPERMANENCE has been invited to screen its 2018 film The Ballet of the Nations in Florence as part of a residency at the house of author Violet Paget, better known as her male pseudonym Vernon Lee, who wrote the book on which the film is based. The original text was a pacifist satire written in 1915 in response to the outbreak of World War I. The film features Hollywood star Billy Zane and has played at various festivals, winning best art film at the New Renaissance Film Festival in Amsterdam.

IMPERMANENCE's new website is now live: https://www.impermanence.uk/