Dance Umbrella, DU19 Highlights

Under the leadership of Emma Gladstone, Dance Umbrella has moved to widen the meaning and reach of contemporary dance. And so it is that DU19, the festival's forthcoming edition, brings together performers from four continents – Africa, Australia, the USA and continental Europe – with radical takes on the possibilities of dance.

DU19 will also reach parts of London it hasn’t reached before in two weeks packed with events, from live performance through film, lectures and immersive events.

DU19’s featured artist is Northern Ireland’s Oona Doherty.

Doherty will curate one of DU19’s three afternoons of short dance films at the Barbican, and create work with girls as part of DU’s Access Croydon programme.

She will also present two London premieres: the multi-media Hope Hunt & The Ascension into Lazarus (The Yard: Monday 14 – Wednesday 16 October 19:30); and Hard to be Soft - a Belfast Prayer

Southbank Centre’s Queen Elizabeth Hall: Friday 11 October 20:00

Dance Umbrella South African habitué, the dancer and choreographer Gregory Maqoma, brings his rousing Cion: Requiem of Ravel’s Bolero to the Barbican

As the title indicates, Maqoma’s work unfolds to the musical motif of Ravel’s Bolero, reinterpreted through song and percussion by four traditional vocalists joined onstage by eight gifted artists from Vuyani Dance Theatre.

Cion: Requiem of Ravel’s Bolero tells the story of Toloki (Gregory Maqoma), a paid mourner confronting a world of greed, power and harmful religious ideology.

Barbican: Thur 17 – Sat 19 October 19:45

From Switzerland comes Philippe Saire, whose work Hocus Pocus has its London premiere at DU19. Hocus Pocus is a family show of particular appeal to children aged 6+ with its magical combination of dance, theatre and stage trickery set to music from Grieg’s Peer Gynt.

Hocus Pocus is part of DU19’s London Orbital Tour, which brings the same show to a number of venues in the capital, including Fairfield Halls, Croydon, The Place and Stratford Circus Arts Centre.

Various venues 11 – 26 October

Gisèlle Vienne, a Franco-Austrian director, choreographer and visual artist whose work has attracted consistent praise throughout continental Europe, comes to DU19 with Crowd, a meticulous exploration of the conflicts that arise in a group of young people.

To a techno-beat, 15 young people are hoping to have fun at an open field rave party, but a complex web of emotions and conflicts soon develops among them and plays out in a ritual of collective movement.

Springback Magazine wrote of Gisèlle Vienne’s Crowd: ’her masterful consecration of revelry and splendour is a fierce rollercoaster’ and had this advice: ‘you’d better fasten your seatbelts.’

Sadler’s Wells: Tuesday 8 – Wednesday 9 October 19:30

LA-based Mythili Prakash crosses the Atlantic with Here and Now, giving her brand new work its world premiere at DU19. Billed by none other than Akram Khan as his ‘choreographer of the future,’ Prakash was trained in the Bharatanatyam style of Indian dance; Here and Now is a work of contemporary dance, with live percussive and vocal accompaniment.

Lighting is by Guy Hoare, who’s well-known to London dance audiences through his work with Akram Khan, among many others.

Mythili Prakash’s Here and Now is part of Dance Umbrella’s growing relationship with Croydon, of which DU19’s Fairfields Takeover is the most recent manifestation.

Fairfield Halls: Friday 18 October 7.30pm

These are just some of the highlights of a plentiful, challenging programme. All details here