NEWS: Sadler's Wells proudly announce their Spring season!

Sadler’s Wells announces its Spring 2020 season

-       Major new Sadler’s Wells Productions, Kate Prince’s Message In A Bottle with music by Sting, and the latest in the Composer Series with a focus on Nico Muhly

-       common ground[s], a Sadler’s Wells, Pina Bausch Foundation and École des Sables Production

-       Lloyd Newson’s Enter Achilles co-produced by Sadler’s Wells and Rambert

-       UK premieres of works by Sadler’s Wells Associate Artists Crystal Pite and Michael Keegan Dolan

-       BLKDOG by Olivier Award-winning Botis Seva tours the UK, co-produced by Far From The Norm and Sadler’s Wells

-       Singin’ in the Rain starring Adam Cooper makes a splash this summer

Tickets are on sale from Monday 14 October 2019 for Sadler’s Wells’ Spring 2020 season, which features three world premieres, seven UK premieres, and 12 Sadler’s Wells Productions and co-productions, as well as a host of new creative partnerships involving artists from all over the world.

Sadler’s Wells’ Artistic Director and Chief Executive Alistair Spalding said: “Sadler's Wells' mission is to make and share dance that inspires us all, and I believe our Spring 2020 season truly reflects that. It includes the world premiere of the third work in our composer series, focusing on the work of leading contemporary composers. I commissioned our New Wave Associate Julie Cunningham, our Associate Artist Michael Keegan-Dolan and American dance maker Justin Peck to create new work on the music of New York-based Nico Muhly. I am excited to see how each choreographer responds to the music and reveals its qualities through dance. The season also features great new collaborations, such as Kate Prince’s Message In A Bottle, our new production set to the music of Sting, and a groundbreaking double bill co-produced with the Pina Bausch Foundation and Senegal’s École des Sables, including Bausch’s version of The Rite of Spring set on dancers from across the African continent as well as a new work, common ground[s].”

Message In A Bottle, the spectacular new dance theatre show from triple Olivier Award nominee and Sadler’s Wells Associate Artist Kate Prince, set to the iconic hits of 17-time Grammy Award-winning artist Sting, receives its world premiere at Sadler’s Wells’ West End venue The Peacock from Thursday 6 February - Saturday 21 March ahead of a UK and international tour. The production marks the first collaboration between the theatre and Universal Music UK.

A village alive with joyous celebrations is suddenly under siege. In the chaos, three parted siblings are separated from their parents, and from each other. Determined and daring, they step out on their own extraordinary adventures. With a mix of exhilarating dance styles, dazzling footwork and breath-taking athleticism, this is the latest work from the groundbreaking creator behind SYLVIA and Everybody’s Talking About Jamie (choreography). Songs include Every Breath You Take, Roxanne, Walking on the Moon and many more.

After its run at The Peacock Message In A Bottle tours to Theatre de la Ville Luxembourg (26 - 28 March), The Lowry, Salford (1 - 4 April) and Birmingham Hippodrome (7 - 11 April), with further international dates to be confirmed.

Following Sadler’s Wells Associate Artist Michael Keegan-Dolan’s critically acclaimed Swan Lake/ Loch na hEala, he returns with the UK premiere of a new production, co-produced with Sadler’s Wells, from Wednesday 5 - Friday 7 February.

The Irish-language word mám describes the pass that connects two sides of a mountain and is the inspiration for Keegan-Dolan’s new work. Bringing together the Irish concertina player Cormac Begley, the music collective stargaze and 12 dancers from Keegan-Dolan’s company, Teaċ Daṁsa, MÁM acknowledges how life’s polarities can on occasion come together and find resolution.

The joint creators of the Olivier Award-winning Betroffenheit, writer Jonathon Young and Sadler’s Wells Associate Artist Crystal Pite, reunite once again with Pite’s company, Kidd Pivot, to turn their brilliant minds to the comic play The Inspector General (known as “Revizor” in Russia), in a new co-production with Sadler’s Wells. 

Taking Nikolai Gogol’s 1836 farce as a starting point, Pite and Young revise an archetypal comic plot to serve as the basis for choreography in a true hybrid of contemporary theatre and dance. In Revisor, which has its UK premiere at Sadler’s Wells from Tuesday 3 - Thursday 5 March, eight Kidd Pivot dancers embody the recorded dialogue of some of Canada’s finest actors, exploring conflict, comedy and corruption in the potent relationship between language and the body.

Nico Muhly’s pioneering music, played live by Britten Sinfonia, is the subject of a new Sadler’s Wells Production, in a triple bill from Julie Cunningham, Michael Keegan-Dolan and Justin Peck. The latest in the Composer Series, which partners contemporary composers with choreographers to create new works, it receives its world premiere at Sadler’s Wells from Thursday 19 - Saturday 21 March.

For this triple bill, inspired by murder ballad The Two Sisters, Sadler’s Wells Associate Artist Keegan-Dolan interprets dark folk-song arrangement The Only Tune, sung live by Sam Amidon; New Wave Associate Cunningham selects Drones, a reflection on the subtle and constant noise in most dwelling places; and a new composition, commissioned by New York City Ballet, accompanies Peck’s work for 12 dancers performed by NYCB, marking their first appearance in London since 2008. This is the third Sadler’s Wells Production in the Composer Series following acclaimed programmes inspired by the music of Thomas Adès and Mark-Anthony Turnage. The composer series was launched to challenge choreographers to respond to the music of living composers by making new work, designed to enable collaboration between leading lights in the world of music and dance, and to exchange ideas.

The idea of ‘exchange’ is central to a new two-part programme, which marks the first collaboration between the Pina Bausch Foundation (Germany), École des Sables (Senegal) and Sadler’s Wells (UK). The Rite of Spring / common ground[s], receives its UK premiere at Sadler’s Wells from Sunday 17 May - Wednesday 20 May.

Bausch’s seminal 1975 work, The Rite of Spring, is danced by a newly assembled company of dancers from African countries. In common gound[s], Germaine Acogny, “the mother of contemporary African dance” and founder of École des Sables, unites with Malou Airaudo, a former member of Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch who has performed central roles in many of Bausch’s pieces. Inspired by their experiences and history as choreographers, professors and mothers, this work created and performed by these remarkable women reflects their common ground.

The Rite of Spring / common ground[s] receives its world premiere at Théâtre National Daniel Sorano, Senegal (24 & 25 March), and tours to Centre Culturel Blaise Senghor, Senegal (28 March), Wuppertal Opera House (9 - 12 April), and Théâtre de la Ville, Paris (1 - 21 June), with more venues to be confirmed.

25 years after legendary dance iconoclast Lloyd Newson (DV8 Physical Theatre) first dragged British pub culture kicking and yelling onto the stage, Rambert and Sadler’s Wells present Newson’s reworking of Enter Achilles at Sadler’s Wells from Tuesday 26 May - Saturday 6 June.

As pertinent now as it was when first staged in 1995, Enter Achilles wrestles with the notion of masculinity, through the funny, provocative and disturbing actions of eight men during an evening in a British pub. The critically acclaimed original production was made into an Emmy Award-winning film. It now returns to the stage with a new cast, selected by Newson, in his first collaboration with another company, the world-renowned Rambert.

Enter Achilles tours to Festispielhaus St. Pölten, Austria (14 February), Théâtres de la Ville, Luxembourg (21 & 22 March) and Teatre Nacional de Catalunya, Spain (9 - 11 July).

Vital and gripping, BLKDOG is Botis Seva’s haunting commentary on surviving adulthood as a childlike artist. Co-produced by Far From The Norm and Sadler’s Wells, the Olivier Award-winning BLKDOG was originally performed at Sadler’s Wells in Autumn 2018 as part of an evening of new commissions to celebrate the 20^th anniversary of the current theatre.

A genre-defying blend of hip hop dance and free form antics, BLKDOG explores the inner battlefield of an ageing artist trying to retain his youth. Performed by Seva’s powerhouse company Far From The Norm, BLKDOG searches for coping mechanisms in the ultimate hunt for acceptance. Botis Seva and Far From The Norm have previously performed at Sadler’s Wells with Breakin’ Convention and curated a Wild Card evening. Seva was Guest Artistic Director of the National Youth Dance Company, run by Sadler’s Wells, in 2018 - 2019.

BLKDOG will tour the UK in Spring 2020, visiting Warwick Arts Centre, Dance East, Midlands Arts Centre, Northern Stage, The Lowry, Nuffield Southampton Theatres City and The Point Eastleigh. It will be at Sadler’s Wells on 15 & 16 October 2020, with tickets on sale in May.

Summer 2020 at Sadler’s Wells sees song-and-dance legend Adam Cooper reprise the iconic role made so famous by Gene Kelly, in Jonathan Church’s critically acclaimed production of Singin’ in the Rain from Friday 24 July - Sunday 30 August. A smash-hit at Chichester Festival Theatre and in the West End, this irresistible show returns to London to make a summer splash. Andrew Wright’s high-energy choreography and Simon Higlett’s sumptuous set design (including over 14,000 litres of water on stage every night) combine with the charm, romance and wit of one of the world’s best-loved films. Singin’ in the Rain features the glorious MGM score including Good Morning, Make ‘em Laugh, Moses Supposes and of course, Singin’ in the Rain.

The Monument Trust supports co-productions and new commissions at Sadler’s Wells

Tickets for the Spring 2019 season are on public sale from Monday 14 October from 9am via www.sadlerswells.com and 020 7863 8000 and in person at 10am. Booking opens to members from Monday 7 October.