Małgorzata Dzierżon is a choreographer, dance teacher and producer. She has performed with, among others, Rambert, Gothenburg Ballet and Royal Danish Ballet and made guest appearances with Wayne McGregor and the Ballet Boyz. She has received nominations for the Spotlight and Outstanding Female Dancer Award in the UK National Critics’ Circle Awards. She has taught at the Royal Academy of Dance and, as a guest lecturer, at the Royal Ballet School and Central School of Ballet in London. She was an artist-in-residence at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts in 2020. She worked for many years as the artistic director and producer at Fertile Ground and New Movement Collective. Dzierżon also joined Wrocław Opera as a Ballet Director in August 2022.
New Movement Collective‘s Les Noces – The Departure, is showing at Woolwich Works on the 13th and 14th of January. One hundred years after Stravinsky and Nijinska created the powerful masterpiece Les Noces, New Movement Collective presents a re-imagining of this iconic ballet with a mass celebration. Performed in Stravinsky’s audacious choice for pianos and percussions, the cast includes singers from the Opera Holland Park Chorus, musicians from the Royal Academy of Music and new choreography will be staged by a some of Britain’s best contemporary dancers. Buy tickets here.
Can you give us some background on the New Movement Collective?
New Movement Collective (NMC) is a group of dance artists who come together to collaborate on interdisciplinary projects. Our background is in dance, so movement is always a strong component in our productions. We often create work in response to unusual settings – it could be an industrial space, a former chapel, a gallery. We even created a film on army training grounds using night vision cameras! To realise these projects, we invite artists from other fields – architects, designers, composers. Our new project – Les Noces – The Departure has a particularly strong music focus. During our projects, our small NMC core team of 10 can grow up to 70 contributors. What’s unusual about NMC is that we work without a lead creative director aiming to shape the ideas in a collective creative process.
Les Noces is an iconic ballet, the score by Stravinsky and original choreography by Bronislava Nijinska. In what ways has the New Movement Collective reimagined Les Noces, in terms of music as well as movement?
Performing Les Noces is a big task – we are fascinated by the music while also conscious of the challenges it presents – complex rhythms, large orchestration. Stravinsky considered many different options here, including pianolas (self-playing pianos) before settling for the choice of four grand pianos, six percussions and timpani. For our production we are collaborating with young musicians form the Royal Academy of Music and the Royal College of Music, as well as the Opera Holland Park Chorus and four soloists. We are creating new choreography for Les Noces and commissioning three new music pieces in response to Les Noces, asking what the themes of commitment, love and marriage inspire in the current generation of musicians and song writers. In our programme, Les Noces will be performed alongside new works by the project’s music director Yshani Perinpanayagam, emerging RAM composer Andrea Balency-Béarn, and Beatbox Champion MC Zani.
What has the creative process been like, especially since there are so many collaborators and collectives working on this project?
We began thinking about the work a few years ago while we had the opportunity to work with a small group of musicians in a shared space, imaging the audience being surrounded by live sound and dance. The idea of working with Les Noces specifically came a little later. We kept developing the project during short periods of R&D, with different groups of available dancers. In the last year we were able to take large steps towards the programme we are making now, not least thanks to our partner organisations which also include English National Ballet, East London Dance and Manchester based Company Chameleon where we work with Youth Companies and a group of dancers over 60 – Leap of Faith, exploring the themes of love and commitment through workshops and new dance pieces created especially for them.
Many of our readers are young and interested in the arts sector, so what advice do you have for aspiring creatives hoping to work in the dance industry?
In dance there are some fantastic opportunities – like ENBYouthCo and Company Chameleon, where young people have the chance to work with inspiring professional artists and to perform. Auditions are held every year, and the classes and format of the company can really support your growth and development towards a professional path in the arts. I’d also encourage everyone to take advantage of any opportunities to watch live performances, see exhibitions and to develop their own creativity by dreaming big – hold on those ideas, be patient and persist – some projects take years to realise, as you can see with Les Noces!
Why should someone go to see the New Movement Collective’s Les Noces?
I’m really excited about the performance – the power of the music, the energy of the performers, the scale of the production and an incredible new venue. We will be preforming at the Fireworks Factory at Woolwich Works on January 13 and 14 in a vast, atmospheric space that feels perfect for this experience where the audience gets a chance to get close to the dance and the music in a shared celebration of this incredible work. Buy tickets here
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