Luca Silvestrini's Protein Dance is launching a new digital programme as part of its Protein 21 celebrations, starting on Wednesday 10 June with a live-streamed conversation between Silvestrini and Graham Watts, Chair of the Dance section of the Critics’ Circle, which will be streamed on Facebook Live.
Watts said, “Luca’s unique brand of dance theatre, mixing humour with heavy-hitting themes, has been at the cutting edge of contemporary dance for the past two decades and it's going to be enormous fun finding out what has made his creative force so potent”
On 25 June, DanceEast and The Place will stream Protein’s LOL (Lots of Love) as part the Protein 21 Remix Series, first performed in 2011. Following this, Protein will broadcast a show each month, including 2008’s Dear Body and some earlier pieces including Silvestrini’s works for HeadSpaceDance, each available to watch for one weekend.
A new dance film, The Sun Inside, is currently being created by Silvestrini, filmmaker Roswitha Chesher and composer Andy Pink alongside volunteer contributors from around the world who have shared their reflections on sun inside their homes, and is expected to be released during summer 2020.
Protein’s ongoing professional development training, Embrace, will also continue digitally and the forthcoming one will focus on mental health in the performing arts.
Speaking about this new digital programme, Silvestrini said, “it’s a very special time at Protein and we live in a very special time. Today, more than ever, art, culture have a fundamental role to play in reminding us all of our innate creativity as human beings. This digital phase is intended as a positive, forward-thinking response to the current restrictions and we are delighted to reach out and continue to connect with our people and beyond. Thanks to all the performers, collaborators, promoters and friends for their help in reimagining, reflecting and remixing our history into the future.”
The programme includes:
- LOL (Lots of Love) with DanceEast and The Place Online from Thursday 25 June at 7PM: created in 2010, it enters the lives of a group of six people who narrate their busy and intricate electronic lives as their physical interaction becomes progressively more awkward and out of control (running time 70 minutes).
- Dear Body with Lakeside Arts from Thursday 9 July at 7PM: a satire on fixation with body image and body care that explores the great lengths to which men and women will go to achieve physical perfection (running time 70 minutes).
- Double Bill: B for Body / To The Bone August (date TBC): shorter works including B for Body, which follows the aspirations and nightmares of a woman’s quest for beauty and ultimate happiness, and To the Bone, which reveals struggles and rituals of a couple in what it looks like a domestic environment (running time 20 minutes and 15 minutes).
- Double Bill: Ride / Stairworks with Pavilion Dance South West September (date TBC): Ride looks at the English season and, by extension, the English class system, while Stairworks is a fantasy world of bare torsos, meat and steam, made during the outbreak of the foot and mouth disease in 2003 (running time 9 minutes and 10 minutes).