The Richard Alston Dance Company is to return to Newcastle’s Northern Stage on 4 and 5 May for the first time in nearly twenty years.
“When I was with Rambert Dance Company,” Alston said, “we used to visit the Theatre Royal every December (from 1980 to 1992) and in 1990 we premièred my piece Roughcut there. It was a wet and blustery night and in the interval we had to keep the audience waiting whilst we dealt with a massive rain leakage upstage—it all added to the excitement!
“When I started my own company in the '90s, we came up for several years to the Playhouse—now known as Northern Stage. I always thought it was one of the best stages for dance in all England and would say so in interviews. I am thrilled that my company is performing there again.”
The company will perform a triple bill:
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Brisk Singing, a piece for eight dancers, is Alston’s response to music from the opera Les Boréades by the Baroque composer Jean-Philippe Rameau, known in his own time as ‘the god of dance’.
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Burning, by the company’s Associate Choreographer Martin Lawrance (himself formerly one of the company’s star dancers), is set to Lizst’s Dante Sonata played live by pianist Jason Ridgeway and explores Lisztomania (the Beatlemania of its day) and the composer’s relationship with the young, married Countess Marie D’Agoult. It is described as passionate, frenetic and emotional.
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Nomadic is Alston’s collaboration with the young hip hop choreographer Ajani Johnson-Goffe (the first time Alston has collaborated with another choreographer in his 46-year career). Exploring the meeting point between hip hop and world music, Nomadic is set to music by Ursari Gypsy band Shukar Collective who fuse Romany and electronic music.