Richard Chappell Dance has launched a new season of live performance and digital and participation work for 2021.
The season features the première of a new full-length production, Infinite Ways Home, at Exeter Northcott on 24 and 25 September and CULTVR Lab, Cardiff on 2 October, two dance films shot at Cockington Court and available on YouTube and via Swindon Dance’s digital platform and a large-scale intergenerational participation project across Exeter.
In Infinite Ways Home, six performers create a multi-sensory production including experimental electronic duo Larch, violinist Enyuan Khong and visual artist Iris Borras. A filmed reimagining of the company’s 2018 work Still Touch, which explores the weight felt on the body when a person is denied human contact, sees two dancers perform alongside two human sculptures by Anna Gillespie to a score by Samuel Hall. In the second film in the season, Chappell will respond to the writings of modern-day druid Kristoffer Hughes, reflecting on his own experiences with anxiety over the last year, filmed by Dan Martin.
The season also sees its first large-scale intergenerational participatory programme, Our Roads Home, take place across Exeter from July to September. Featuring a series of workshops and performances the project will culminate in an original dance film about togetherness and community empowerment that will be screened at the Exeter Phoenix cinema and projected onto the Princesshay Shopping Centre.
Chappell said, “I am overjoyed that this year we will be able to continue collaborating with our immensely talented team as we develop our work for film and begin the creative process for Infinite Ways Home, our most ambitious work to date. This year, we take our ensemble to the next level, becoming a Community Interest Company and enhancing the ways we connect with communities, support artists and celebrate togetherness through the transformational power of dance.”