Colker is new Southbank Centre Artist in Residence

Published: 21 March 2019
Reporter: Vera Liber

Dog Without Feathers, The Mother, ZooNation Youth Company Credit: Cia de Dança, Anastasia Tikhonova, Katherine Leedale

London's Southbank Centre has announced Deborah Colker as Artist in Residence alongside its summer 2019 dance programme.

The programme will feature acclaimed international dance companies including Deborah Colker Dance Company, Cullbergbaletten (Cullberg Ballet) and Deborah Hay, Groupe Acrobatique de Tanger and Grupo Intergro alongside solo artists including Royal Ballet principal Natalia Osipova and Mohamed Toukabri. ZooNation Youth Company also returns with its latest Southbank Centre commission.

Six years after its last UK show, Deborah Colker Dance Company returns to London for four nights (7–10 May) in the Queen Elizabeth Hall with the UK première of Dog Without Feathers, winner of the international Prix Benois de la Danse 2018. Inspired by the poem "Cão Sem Plumas" by Brazilian poet João Cabral de Melo Neto, the show uses movement to explore the mythology and influence of North East Brazil's Capibaribe River.

The London première of The Mother from Arthur Pita, based on The Story Of A Mother by Hans Christian Andersen and with a score by Frank Moon and Dave Price performed live, comes to Queen Elizabeth Hall 20–21 June starring Natalia Osipova alongside Jonathan Goddard.

ZooNation Youth Company returns to the Queen Elizabeth Hall with Tales of the Turntable 15–26 August, which follows a boy and his grandfather as they journey on a musical adventure through time, written by Carrie-Anne Ingrouille and featuring music by DJ Walde.

On 6 September at QEH, choreographer Deborah Hay and musician and composer Laurie Anderson unite with Sweden’s Cullbergbaletten (Cullberg Ballet) for the UK première of Figure a Sea, a "meditation on seeing".

In partnership with Shubbak Festival, Southbank Centre also presents two London premières exploring the Arab World by Tunisian artist Mohamed Toukabri and Moroccan acrobatic company Groupe Acrobatique de Tanger. Toukabri uses movement and video to explore his personal migrant experience in The Upsidedown Man (PUR, 29 June), while Groupe Acrobatique de Tanger’s Halka brings Moroccan street life to Queen Elizabeth Hall 11 July, as 14 young acrobats and musicians recreate the sights and sounds of life in the Maghreb.

Also in June, Southbank Centre in partnership with Border Crossings’ ORIGINS Festival features the UK première of Ino Moxo by Peruvian company Grupo Integro, mixing psychedelic imagery, chants and abstract movement to evoke a journey through the Amazon in search of the legendary Ayahuasca shaman Ino Moxo (Purcell Room, 15–16 June).

Returning to Southbank Centre (QEH, 24–25 April) is interdisciplinary performance company, Clod Ensemble with new production On The High Road, Directed by Suzy Willson, and with an original score and songs by Paul Clark, which looks at the themes of migration, difference and intolerance through a disparate group of people caught in a terrible storm on the High Road.

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