This autumn, Joss Arnott Dance is touring the company’s acclaimed Meet the Hatter, an enchanting dance and multimedia show for all ages, to Bournemouth, Gloucester, Rotherham, Chester and Bradford, with further UK and international tour dates in early 2027. Combining powerful dance with storytelling and mesmerising visuals, the show puts a new spin on the story of the iconic Hatter from Lewis Caroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Faced with an empty tea party and a deep sense of isolation, the Hatter uses the power of his imagination to create his own magical version of Wonderland.
Robbie Ordoña is one of two dancers playing The Hatter on tour. His credits include Message in a Bottle by ZooNation: The Kate Prince Company, Breathless Puppets by Akram Khan Company, Everybody’s Talking About Jamie - The Movie, and for HUNTR/X, BAFTAS 2026.
What initially attracted you to the role of the Hatter, and how have you approached making it your own?
Once the role of the Hatter was first explained to me, it really resonated. The journey of the character emotionally touches on subjects that should be explored, especially for young people, themes of loneliness, not fitting in and discovering new things are moments that all young people experience in their adolescence. I think the show and character help to demonstrate that none of these are anything to be worried about.
Approaching the character was something new for me, being the first time creating a theatrical character from scratch. We started with sessions with our dramaturg, Sue Buckmaster, who alongside Joss helped with exploring the humanisation of the Hatter and how to make him personable and relatable to audiences as well as being ‘real’. Even though Dom and I received the same instructions, we each used our own artistry to make the character unique from each other. Our differing styles and outlook on the character assisted in making The Hatter our own. In my opinion, forming this yourself makes the character easiest to perform because it feels like it comes from honesty, vulnerability and true experiences, making the character not feel fake or put on.
As the role is shared between two dancers, how do you and your fellow performer ensure each interpretation remains distinct?
Naturally our interpretations of the Hatter feel very distinct from each other. As people, Dom and I have a lot in common but are also different people and I think that our own personalities do inevitably leak into the characters we have created. For both of us, the character goes through the same experiences and feels the same feelings but how we present these emotions to the audience are unique from each other. My training comes from a mix of Hip-hop and contemporary whereas Dom’s comes from a more through and through contemporary training so I do feel like the way that we execute the choreography is affected by our own individual strengths; neither is better, just naturally different.
Carrying an hour-long solo production is a significant undertaking. How do you prepare, physically and mentally, for that responsibility?
An hour-long solo production is something that I hadn’t done before taking on this venture with Meet The Hatter. I am lucky enough to have experience in touring internationally with highly physically demanding dance shows so taking what I learnt on them and bringing it to this show was crucial. Personally, I need a high intensity warm-up to make sure my body feels ready for the physical stress I am about to put it under, followed by a short improvisation session focusing on the quirks and character mannerisms to make sure that the next time I step onto that stage I am ‘The Hatter;’ and not ‘Robbie’. I like to follow that with a very calm and focused preparation in the dressing room when getting dressed and putting on the character make-up. The responsibility of a solo show is high-pressure and being prepared mentally is a huge part of handling that pressure, there is nowhere to hide on that stage, it can feel quite exposing. Understanding the flow of the show, controlling breathing and managing the pacing are so important to me in making sure that I don’t gass out or lose focus through fatigue. Joss is incredible at handling our preparation for the shows, constantly asking what we need and doing whatever he can to make sure that we have it.
How has the integration of multimedia and projection design influenced your choreographic and performance choices?
Being my first time working with multimedia in production of this scale it was a brand new experience. The choreographic process was very unique, it was like we were working in this creative triangle between choreography, music and projection; each one affecting the other. Naturally, I take a huge amount of instruction for my movement from the music but adding the element of the projection to influence that too was a novel challenge. We would create and then change a lot after seeing how what we made would work alongside the projection varying between controlling what is happening or reacting to what is on the projection or sometimes just being in and amongst it, letting the audience in to experience the characters’ emotions at that time.
The performance aspect is also quite strange. You would think that having the whole stage to yourself to come with an element of freedom of the space but it doesn’t. We have to be so very precise with almost everything we do because if we are an inch or two off of our set mark it could ruin the visual for the audience, instantly killing the magic. We have a few stage marks for certain moments but of course we can’t mark everything, especially when working with the height on the gauze, we just have to know. The only way to nail this is repetition, the more you see it the more you start to visualise the next action on the screen before they appear. The next challenge is the audience perspective; obviously not every audience member is sat in the same place so knowing the correct distance from the gauze for each moment is crucial as it would look different from stage right to stage left depending how many inches you are from the projection. Your mind does not rest for an hour, one moment of lost focus can ruin the magic from the audience.
The production explores themes of imagination and isolation. Do these resonate with you on a personal level?
The themes of imagination and isolation can resonate with everyone to a certain extent on a personal level. For me, as a creative, imagination is everything, when anyone creates it always starts in your head, but that’s the easy part, making that imagination a reality is the hardest part. Things may not always turn out how you imagined them but making the best out of what comes out is what makes wonderful things and that is what I think the essence of The Hatter is. Whether what happens to him is real or imagined is up to you but the fact that The Hatter makes the best and finds joy in everything that happens to him is undeniable and that it something that we can all have a little more of in our lives.
Anyone would be lying if they said that they had never felt isolated or lonely before, it is a very human emotion, being social beings. To be alone is a great fear of many and people can yearn for companionship the same way The Hatter does. But the show demonstrates that there are potential connections everywhere, you just have to be brave enough to make them.