Dance Tue 12 November 2024

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“This small company are always presenting something new”

The Guardian

“A journey of spellbinding choreography and performance”

Seen Anything Lately?

“As heart-wrenching as it is awe-inspiring.”

Buzz Magazine

Escape to the edge of your seat for a double bill of National Dance Company Wales’ signature blend of brilliantly crafted, life-affirming dance.

AUGUST by Matthew William Robinson

As the sun set everything changed.

AUGUST is inspired by sunsets - a space between restraint and recklessness. AUGUST is about endings and saying goodbye . About the changes that fling us together and tear us apart.

Bathed in the fading colours of dusk and the neon accents of night, AUGUST navigates a sensual landscape shifting between the perilous and the beautiful.

An artistic collaboration between choreographer Matthew William Robinson, composer Torben Sylvest, designer George Hampton Wale, lighting designer Emma Jones and the artists of National Dance Company Wales. 

Skinners by Melanie Lane

We live in a digital age. We use filters to blur reality and avatars that disguise our identities. We talk to AI, and it talks back to us. We are teetering on the edge of a thrilling and terrifying future where the human body glitches between flesh and illusion, fact and fiction.

Beyond the fantasies that technology makes possible, our humanity remains. How do we return to the physical world, and to the skin we are living in?

Skinners by Melanie Lane, an Australian choreographer of European and Javanese heritage, features new music from composer Yamila Rios, costume designs by Don Aretino and light from Welsh designer Ceri James.

Dates

Tue 12 November 2024

Space

Main House

Tickets

£12.00 - £16.00

Duration

90 minutes

Audio Described Performance

Audio Described Performance

Post-show talk

Join us after the show for a post-show talk.

Choreographer: Matthew Robinson

A person, backlit with intense red lighting, stands facing the camera with a serious expression. The lighting creates a dramatic and intense mood, casting deep shadows and highlighting the contours of their face.

Matthew Robinson (he/him) is a practicing artist currently based in the United Kingdom.

Collaborating internationally in a variety of contexts as dancer, choreographer, facilitator, rehearsal director and artistic director, he is currently Artistic Director of National Dance Company Wales.

His choreographic work has moved extensively across the United Kingdom and internationally to venues and festivals in Europe and beyond. Built from the body, the work seeks to translate contradictions and complex emotions, through highly physical choreographic construction. Collaborating across forms, Matthew is engaged in ongoing and emerging collaborative partnerships in the fields of sound, fashion, theatre and technology.

An experienced facilitator, Matthew has co-developed projects and experiences around the world in educational and non-educational contexts with students, artists and those with little to no experience of dance. With a passion for the potential of dance to enable us to see ourselves, each other and our world differently, Matthew is an advocate for movement as a fundamental part of everyone’s lives.

For many years Matthew was an integral part of Scottish Dance Theatre, performing work by a range of international choreographers, including Sharon Eyal, Damien Jalet, Hofesh Shechter, and Victor Quijada. In 2013 he was invited to become Rehearsal Director, supporting the dancers and guest artists in their creative process, and the company on multiple international tours.

Matthew was Artistic Director of VERVE from 2016-2021. Collaborating with world renowned and fresh choreographic voices, the company created distinct, engaging programmes of dance work for international touring programmes. Reaching thousands of people each year, onstage, online and in outreach work, the company developed its reputation for bold commissioning and the quality of artistic training it offers emerging dance artists.

In 2021 Matthew was appointed Artistic Director of National Dance Company Wales and has been developing the interweaving possibilities of the company’s artistic and engagement programmes. Rooted in bold collaborations, the companies artistic work embraces the highly distinctive physical vocabularies of artists from near and far, forming unique programmes to inspire and excite audiences and participants across Wales, the United Kingdom and all over the world. With developing work for theatre, public space, festival, and immersive contexts the company is boldly stepping into its future, interrogating and developing the role of repertory companies now.

Matthew is a graduate of London Contemporary Dance School.

Choreographer: Melanie Lane

A woman with long black hair and red lipstick stands in front of a backdrop of green ivy leaves. She is wearing a black quilted jacket and looking directly at the camera with a neutral expression. The natural background contrasts with her striking appearance.

Melanie Lane is an Australian choreographer and performer of Javanese/European cultural heritage. She works across visual arts, theatre, music and film. Her work interrogates physical and cultural histories to explore current social mythologies and extrapolates these into surreal futures that are confounded, broken and reconfigured. These independent works have been presented globally at festivals and theatres in Europe, Indonesia, United States and Australia. Drawing on her European and Indonesian heritage Lane moves between cultural landscapes and influences. Melanie engages regularly across projects in Indonesia as choreographer, collaborator, performer and mentor.

Alongside commissions with WA Ballet, Sydney Dance Company, Australasian Dance Collective, DanceNorth, Chunky Move, Schauspiel Leipzig and HAU Berlin, her collaborations extend to artists; Marrugeku/Bhenji Ra, Clark, Adena Jacobs, Amos Gebhardt, Leyla Stevens, Monica Lim and Rianto. Her choreographic work for theatre and opera includes English National Opera's Salome (London, 2018), Burgtheater's Trojan Women (Vienna, 2022) and Nosferatu (Vienna, 2024) directed by Adena Jacobs.

Melanie won the prestigious Keir Choreographic Award in 2018 and the 2017 Leipziger Bewegungskunstpreis in Germany, and has been nominated for both Green Room and Helpmann awards as both a choreographer and a dancer including the Shirley McKechnie Award for Choreography (2020).

In 2022, Melanie was Artist in Residence for Digital Innovation at the University of Canberra x Belco Arts.

Melanie is 2023/24 Choreographer in Residence at Chunky Move, Resident Artist at The Substation, 2015 resident director at Lucy Guerin Inc., Associate Artist at QL2 and is a current 2023/24 Australia Council for the Arts Fellow.

In 2024, Melanie launched her project Corps Conspirators. This initiative, supported by Creative Victoria and led by Melanie Lane, is a project exploring collaborative choreographic practices, multi-artform experimentation and transcultural experience.

Season Deal

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Book 2 shows in the season and get 15% off!*

Book 3 shows in the season and get 20% off!*

Book 5 shows in the season and get 25% off!*

Click here to see the full list of shows included in our season deal

*T&C's - Available on select shows only. Shows must be booked at the same time. Discount will automatically be applied. This offer is not available in retrospect.

  • Tue 12 November 2024
    7:30pm – 9:00pm
    Audio Described Performance
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