National Youth Dance Company has announced its line-up of 40 young dancers for this year who will take part in workshops in 14 different cities throughout the UK. 30 new members were selected from all over the country, joining 10 dancers returning from last year.
The new company is working under the guidance of 2016/17 Guest Artistic Director Damien Jalet to create Tarantiseismic, a new work which addresses themes of melancholia, ritual, control and abandon that will première at Sadler’s Wells on Wednesday 19 April 2017 followed by a UK national tour.
The dancers are mentored during three intensive residencies over the year. In February, this will be held in Hull to coincide with its City of Culture 2017 status.
Damien Jalet is a French and Belgian choreographer and dancer who has danced for companies such as Les Ballets C de la B and Wim Vandekeybus. As a choreographer, Jalet has been involved in collaborations with companies such as Eastman, Chunky Move, Icelandic Dance Company, Akram Khan, Erna Omarsdottir and Sasha Waltz.
Recent directing projects include Babel (Words), which won the Olivier Award for Best Dance Production in 2011, les méduses, an itinerary installation inside Louvre museum in Paris with 30 artists, and a restaging of Ravel’s Bolero for the Paris Opera Ballet, a collaboration with Marina Abramovic and Cherkaoui. Damien Jalet is entitled "Chevalier de l’ordre des arts et des lettres" by the French government and is a laureate 2015 of the Kujoyama residency in Kyoto.
In his appointment as NYDC Guest Artistic Director, Jalet follows in the footsteps of Michael Keegan-Dolan, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Akram Khan and Jasmin Vardimon. The entire group of 40 talented dancers from the 2015/16 year achieved Gold Arts Award during their time in the company. More than 80% of all former NYDC dancers are now either in further dance studies, in vocational training or working professionally.
Sadler’s Wells Artistic Director and Chief Executive Alistair Spalding said, “I am delighted to welcome 30 new talented dancers to NYDC and to Sadler’s Wells. These young people have the potential to grow into the leading dance artists of the future and we are committed to providing them with all the skills and tools they need to develop. The company has been going from strength to strength since 2012 and I look forward to seeing what the new cohort will create with Damien Jalet this year.”
Jalet added, “I accepted this challenging invitation to create a work for the 40 dancers of NYDC, because I feel it is a beautiful task to attempt to channel the incredible diversity of talents and personalities of this group of young dancers into a full evening of performance. I am moved by their desires, their hopes, their fears, their joy, their will to become what they dream of in a world where not much room has been left for them.
“Driven by their urge to dance, we explore together in Tarantiseismic how notions of abandonment, instability, empowerment through collective energy could convey in one common, complex yet transcending rhythm.”