Following its world première at Sadler’s Wells in April, the National Youth Dance Company is touring Frame[d], created by this year’s Guest Artistic Director, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, to mac Birmingham 21 June, Dance City Newcastle 4 July, The Stanley and Audrey Burton Theatre Leeds 12 July Latitude Festival Suffolk 19 July, DanceEast Jerwood DanceHouse Ipswich 21 July, Pavilion Dance South West, Bournemouth 23 July, U.Dance2015, Plymouth 25 July, and return to London as part of Apex Rising at Sadler’s Wells 4 September.
The new commission Frame[d] sees Cherkaoui, an Associate Artist of Sadler’s Wells, revisiting moments from his established catalogue of work: Babel(words) co-choreographed with Damien Jalet, Puz/zle, Loin and TeZukA, incorporating new ideas and movement material from the young dancers.
Cherkaoui and his artistic team worked with the NYDC dancers over three intensive residencies taking place across the year to create, develop and rehearse the newly commissioned piece.
This year’s cohort of 38 NYDC young dancers, selected from all over the country in 2014, includes BBC Young Dancer 2015 Connor Scott.
Founded in 2012 and hosted at Sadler’s Wells, NYDC is a new company that aims to create and perform innovative and influential youth dance, drawing together some of the brightest young talent from across the country to work with Sadler’s Wells’ internationally renowned Associate Artists.
Since NYDC’s inception in 2012, 1000 young people have worked with the company. NYDC has delivered 47 workshops in 21 different venues across 17 towns and cities, and 90 dancers have joined the company, working intensively with renowned dance artists including guest artistic directors Jasmin Vardimon (2012-13), Akram Khan (2013-14) and Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui (2014-15). These 90 dancers come from 43 different towns and cities in England.