Sadler’s Wells & BBC Arts announce line-up for digital festival Dancing Nation

Pictured: Spitfire 2012 production (Credit: Roy Tan Photography)

Sadler’s Wells and BBC Arts have today revealed the line-up for their all-day digital, live and pre-recorded broadcast of Dancing Nation.

Celebrating world-class dance, the festival will be streamed on BBC iPlayer for UK audiences and on Sadler’s Wells’ website for international viewing on Thursday 14 January 2021.

Viewers will be treated to a series of new works plus audience favourites. The programme includes big-name dancers and choreographers alongside breakthrough talent across ballet, contemporary and hip-hop dance styles, including works from Matthew Bourne’s New Adventures, English National Ballet, Royal Ballet principal dancer Natalia Osipova, Boy Blue, Shobana Jeyasingh Dance, Akram Khan, Rambert and more.  

Supported by Arts Council England, Dancing Nation features fifteen live or pre-recorded performances, artists inhabiting spaces throughout Sadler’s Wells, across its stages, studios and foyer spaces in an all-day ‘take-over’ of the building. The event will be streamed at three points throughout the day in hour-long segments. Each episode will be hosted by BBC presenter Brenda Emmanus, introducing the performances and interviewing artists. After the initial broadcast, each programme will be available for 30 days on BBC iPlayer for audiences in the UK and on Sadler’s Wells website for those outside the UK, followed by a 90-minute highlights programme which is available for 12 months. 

Dancing Nation starts with the first segment streaming live from Sadler’s Wells at 10.30 am GMT on Thursday 14 January, with two more programmes following at 1.30 pm GMT and 4.30 pm GMT. Full programme details for each episode will be released in the new year.  

Featured works include: Matthew Bourne’s seminal early piece Spitfire (1988) presented by dancers from his company New Adventures; two of the world’s most celebrated dancers, Akram Khan and Royal Ballet principal Natalia Osipova, performing together for the very first time, in a work inspired by Akram Khan and Sylvie Guillem’s critically acclaimed 2006 duet, Sacred Monsters; English National Ballet with Hollow by emerging talent Stina Quagebeur; Candoco Dance Company’s Face In, a contemporary dance piece by Yasmeen Godder which debuted at Sadler’s Wells in 2018; Birmingham Royal Ballet’s recent work Lazuli Sky, choreographed by Will Tuckett, alongside an interview with world-famous ballet luminary and Birmingham Royal Ballet's Artistic Director, Carlos Acosta; Northern Irish choreographer Oona Doherty’s swaggering, award-winning dance-theatre tour de force, Hope Hunt & the Ascension into Lazarus; and Shobana Jeyasingh  Dance’s Contagion, a timely restaging of this work through which we reflect on the coronavirus crisis through the lens of a previous pandemic.  

New works and commissions premiered as part of Dancing Nation include: break-through dance company HUMANHOOD’s moon-inspired ORBIS and SPHERA, exploring the relationship and influence of Earth’s satellite on humans; Shades of Blue, from Matsena Productions, a response in dance to the effects of COVID-19 and the Black Lives Matter movement; and Northern Ballet’s States of Mind by Kenneth Tindall – a resident artist with the company.  

The programmes also include hip-hop theatre and pop-contemporary works, with dance powerhouse Boy Blue in an extract from their searing Olivier-nominated hit, Blak Whyte Gray; Rambert’s Rouge from choreographer Marion Motin, known in the pop world through her work with artists Christine and the Queens and Dua Lipa; Far From the Norm, blending hip-hop and contemporary dance styles in an extract from their Olivier Award-winning BLKDOG; and hip-hop dance powerhouse Breakin’ Convention, led by Artistic Director Jonzi D, take us off stage with Window Shopping, transforming Sadler’s Wells public spaces with a diverse meeting of popping, voguing, flamenco and ballet performance.    

Artistic Director and CEO of Sadler’s Wells Alistair Spalding said: “We're really looking forward to starting the New Year as we mean to go on, by partnering with incredible artists to bring you world-class performances in Dancing Nation. The event is a showcase of the breadth of dancers and choreographers making work in the UK today, and a celebration of their talent to inspire us to look forward to 2021 with renewed optimism. We hope that audiences all around the world will join with us at points throughout the day to watch the event and enjoy some of the artists and performances we have been missing this year. We thank our partners at BBC Arts and Arts Council England for their continued support, collaboration and commitment to artists and arts audiences, which have made ambitious projects like Dancing Nation possible.”   

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