Dancing Nation (1280x720p HD, 50fps, soft Eng subs)

A three-part celebration of world-class dance featuring leading UK companies.

E01 Breakin' Convention and Matthew Bourne's classic, Spitfire
World-class dance also featuring Candoco, HUMANHOOD, and English National Ballet.

In this, the first of three Dancing Nation programmes, BBC Arts and Sadler's Wells present a festival of dance featuring:

Matthew Bourne's New Adventures - Spitfire. Before his legendary Swan Lake, Nutcracker! and Cinderella, Matthew Bourne created his first hit, Spitfire (1988). This hilarious work places the most famous nineteenth-century ballet showstopper Pas De Quatre in the world of men’s underwear advertising.

Candoco Dance Company, choreographed by Yasmeen Godder. A sensual and disturbing ode to intimacy and imagination, expressed through striking images interwoven with daring and uninhibited dance.

Window Shopping, a brand new work from hip-hop dance powerhouse Breakin’ Convention, led by their Artistic Director Jonzi D. Starting from the outside looking in, popping, voguing, flamenco and ballet dancers welcome you into Sadler's Wells.

A new piece, Orbis, by break-through dance company HUMANHOOD. This visually astonishing duet explores the relationship between humankind and the dark side of Earth’s permanent natural satellite, the Moon.

And Hollow, a duet from English National Ballet performed by Emily Suzuki and Victor Prigent. In Stina Quagebeur’s contemporary duet, a couple contend with depression, and the confusion and displacement it causes between them. With fluid, continuous movement, their bodies intertwine, change direction and come into conflict.

Dancing Nation is a three-part celebration of dance featuring many of the UK’s leading dance companies and the most exciting new emerging talent.

Presented by Brenda Emmanus as part of BBC Arts’ Culture in Quarantine, this unique festival has been curated in lockdown by Sadler’s Wells, London - one of the world’s leading dance houses.


E02 Akram Khan and Natalia Osipova, Far From The Norm and Boy Blue
Birmingham Royal Ballet and the swagger of Oona Doherty also feature in Part Two.

Dancing Nation continues with a celebration of outstanding dance talent curated and hosted by Sadler’s Wells, London - bringing arts and performance to audiences at home and supporting the UK creative sector for BBC Art’s Culture in Quarantine virtual arts festival.

In this second programme of the series, Brenda Emmanus presents a further snapshot of the British dance scene in all its forms including:

Mud of Sorrow: Touch choreographed by Akram Khan. Two of the world’s most celebrated dancers, Akram Khan and Royal Ballet principal Natalia Osipova, perform together for the first time using two great classical dance forms - ballet and kathak. Touch is a re-imagining of a duet from Khan’s critically acclaimed collaboration with Sylvie Guillem, Sacred Monsters.

Belfast-based choreographer Oona Doherty's Hope Hunt and the Ascension Into Lazarus. This award-winning solo performance bursts with fury, swagger and humanity. Hope Hunt shatters facades, dismantles stereotypes and finds beauty on the periphery.

HUMANHOOD's Sphera. In this visually impactful contemporary dance duet, the dancers explore the relationship between the visible, bright side of the Moon and humankind.

Internationally acclaimed hip hop dance company Boy Blue bring one section of their Olivier Award-nominated work, Blak Whyte Gray. This fierce, bold and galvanising dance work, set to a multilayered electronic score, reflects themes of identity, oppression and transcendence.

Far From The Norm's Olivier Award-winning BLKDOG. A genre-defying blend of hip-hop dance, this work is a haunting commentary on surviving adulthood as a childlike artist.

Birmingham Royal Ballet perform Lazuli Sky, a hopeful and regenerative ballet created in 2020 by Will Tuckett, who also explains what is behind the piece. And Carlos Acosta talks about the challenges of his first year as Artistic Director with BRB.


E03 Rambert's Rouge and Shobana Jeyasingh Dance's Contagion
Dancing Nation concludes, also featuring Northern Ballet and Matsena’s Shades of Blue.

In this final part of three very special programmes we celebrate the extraordinary power of dance. Artists inhabit spaces throughout Sadler’s Wells from foyer to stage, as Dancing Nation presents more world-class performances from some of the country’s leading dance companies and rising stars.

Anthony and Kel Matsena’s searing Shades of Blue. This work takes us into the heat of a protest and looks at the effects of COVID-19 and the Black Lives Matter movement on a generation that longs for freedom and peace.

Choreographer Kenneth Tindall and Northern Ballet bring us States of Mind. Inspired by a collection of thoughts, feelings and news headlines from lockdown, this poignant new work is an abstract response through movement to a selection of situations experienced during recent months.

Created by Shobana Jeyasingh in 2018, Contagion explores the nature and spread of the unseen virus which caused the ‘Spanish flu’ pandemic in 1918. This specially staged version of Contagion, set to an atmospheric soundscape, is inspired by the 1918 virus itself.

And the series wraps up with an explosive collaboration from world-renowned Rambert and French choreographer Marion Motin, whose hip hop-influenced style is best known through her work for Christine and the Queens and Dua Lipa’s IDGAF music video. The result - Rouge - is fresh and bold, with four-to-the floor beats, tight unison bodies and glorious costumes.

Presented by Brenda Emmanus as part of BBC Arts’ Culture in Quarantine, this unique festival was brought together in lockdown by Sadler’s Wells, London - one of the world’s leading dance houses.

First broadcast:  January 2021
Duration - various

Torrent dead? Request reseed at torrentgalaxy.org - or ask at elsonroa at tutanota.com