Didy Veldman’s The Knot for her company Umanoove kicks off its autumn tour at Lakeside Arts, Nottingham on Tuesday 6 November before heading to Cambridge, Birmingham, Portsmouth, Bracknell, Worthing, London, Jersey, Plymouth, Bournemouth and Malvern.
An international cast of seven dancers play the roles of the bride, groom, best man and bridesmaids while audience members become wedding guests. Veldman scrutinises what a wedding means and how it feels, examining the role of ritual, doubt, religion and gender and the romanticised ideas of Walt Disney.
The Knot is Veldman’s second work for her company Umanoove since it launched with The Happiness Project in 2016. She left Rambert as a dancer in 2000 to pursue a choreographic career and has since created works for Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal, Cedarlake (New York), Cullberg Ballet (Sweden), Introdans (Netherlands), Gothenburg Ballet, Iceland Dance Company and Royal New Zealand Ballet.
In the UK, she has been commissioned by Rambert, Northern Ballet and Scottish Dance Theatre and in 2019 she creates a new work, collaborating with composer Gabriel Prokofiev, the grandson of Sergei Prokofiev, for Birmingham Royal Ballet’s inaugural Ballet Now programme.
Dancers returning to The Knot this autumn are Dane Hurst (Rambert, National Dance Company of Wales, Phoenix Dance Theatre and Company Wayne McGregor), Mathieu Geffré (Dansgroep Amsterdam, Noord Nederlandse Dans, National Dance Company Wales, Theo Clinkard), Oliver Chapman (Henri Oguike Dance, National Dance Company of Wales, Icon Dance), Sara Harton (erSa Danse, Les 7 doigts de la main, PPS Danse, ezdanza) and Angela Venturini (recently a post-graduate student at The Place).
Joining them will be Mai Lisa Guinoo (Rambert, GoteborgOperans) and apprentice dancer Sam Costello (London Contemporary Dance School).
Stravinsky's Les Noces (The Wedding) is intertwined with specially commissioned music by British composer Ben Foskett. Lighting design is by Ben Ormerod, a regular collaborator of Veldman’s, and set and costume design is by Joana Dias.