Reading Time: < 1 minuteHow does it feel to fall from a trapeze, suffering a spinal cord injury that leaves you paralysed? For the ordinary, it's already unimaginable; let alone for an acrobatic dancer. Yet, having lived through this experience, dancer and choreographer Diana Niepce recounts her journey of recovery in her latest solo work, The Other Side of Dance.
Reading Time: 2 minutesPeaky Blinders: The Redemption of Thomas Shelby is currently touring around the UK and parts of Europe until August 2025. It is being performed at the New Theatre, Oxford from the 15-19th October. The show is a dance adaptation of the BBC series that has been choreographed by the insanely talented, Benoit Swan Pouffer. Rambert School of Dance initially explored classical ballet but then evolved into many other different dance styles including hip hop and more abstract dance forms. The companies training and work is located in the South Bank area in London. It is a breeding group of intensive and groundbreaking training that is developed into large scale touring productions. Themes that the play looks into include gang violence, grief, war and community. It tells the story of Thomas Shelby, the leader of the Peaky Blinders (a Birmingham based gang), who takes control of Birmingham in 1919 through violence and child trafficking. It was a deeply moving and thought-provoking piece of theatre. With huge dance numbers and a brilliant live band this show is not one to be missed.
Reading Time: 2 minutesDeveloped from her solo piece Hatched in 2007, Mamela Nyamza's Hatched Ensemble questions and confronts this legacy, eventually transformed into a celebration of South African culture and dance traditions.
Reading Time: 2 minutesOn paper, ‘Danesha’ is about everything you might want in 75 minutes of theatre — a coming of age story centring on the eponymous Danesha (Talia Rae Smith), following her as she discovers her racial and queer identities through dance and the clubs of Manchester.
Reading Time: 3 minutesThe doors leading into Edinburgh’s Festival Theatre are papered with advice of being “under new management, by order of the Peaky Blinders”, and inside, staff are wearing the unmistakable flat cap uniform immortalised in the eponymous BBC drama series. The Redemption of Thomas Shelby, a stage adaptation by Rambert Dance, leans heavy on the appeal of the source material from the outset.
Reading Time: 2 minutesThe dance world has a propensity to take itself perhaps a little too seriously. A typically stoic art form, whether it be ballet, contemporary, modern, or Graham, we revel in the sombre beauty of dance. While musical theatre itself succeeds in drawing out the joyful silliness of dance, through tap, Fosse, and so forth, more classical styles still find themselves wary of humour. TUTU arrives to turn this notion on its head.
Reading Time: 3 minutesRambert dancer Simone Damberg-Würtz talks about performing in the daring and dynamic show, and embodying Peaky Blinder’s Polly Gray.
Reading Time: 2 minutes"Traplord," staged at Aviva Studios in Manchester, is a show that masterfully creates an atmospheric, almost immersive experience from the moment it begins.
Reading Time: 4 minutesWe sat down with Artistic Director of the company, Chicos Mambos, ahead of their show TUTU coming to the Peacock Theatre, Sadler's Wells 1-5th October. Created by Philippe Lafeuille, this family-friendly show features an all-male cast of six dancers adorned in ever-changing, flamboyant costumes.
Reading Time: 2 minutesDaring acrobatics and soulful afro jazz fusion sounds Illustrate the daily life in Guinea. For a brief 90 mins we are transported from the South Bank Centre’s Queen Elizabeth hall to the streets of Guinea to witness the bustling lives of fisherman, market workers and construction workers in an energetic circus display of strength and joy. Cirque Kalabante is a west African circus company created by Yamoussa Bangoura who choreographs and designs their shows, This show marks their first time in London, and it is not to be missed.