Point of Echoes (Photo: Arnim Friess)
When: 11th September – 8th December 2018
Where: At venues across the UK
£: Ticket prices vary, depending on the event
What is it?
The Rural Touring Dance Initiative’s (RTDI) autumn programme will be bringing dance performances to village halls around the UK from today (Tuesday 11th September).
The productions chosen for this tour will be an eclectic mix, from adaptations of classic books and fairy tales, through to comic dance solos, digital installations and immersive work; bringing some of the best of contemporary dance to audiences who might not otherwise see it.
The first shows in September will see bgoup’s Point of Echoes return to rural touring. Point of Echoes, a haunting tale of love, death and monsters set on a remote lighthouse, was the first show to be commissioned especially for rural touring by the RTDI.
Making its rural touring debut from September is James Wilton Dance’s Leviathan, a fast-paced and athletic reimagining of Herman Melville’s Moby Dick; performed by a cast of six to a powerful electro-rock soundtrack.
Rural touring favourites Lost Dog, won a Rural Touring Award for their previous show Paradise Lost (lies unopened beside me…), which toured village halls around the country in 2016 and 2017. Their new show, Juliet and Romeo, will be touring from October. The show offers an alternative take on Shakespeare’s tragic lovers, seeing them grow up and live into middle age, in a show that blends dance, theatre and comedy.
Tom Dale Company’s I INFINITE, which will tour in November, is part dance, part video installation and meditates on the digital world’s quest to recreate life. Also in November, Complicité Associate Artist Shane Shambhu offers a humorous and honest personal tale of growing up in East London, in Confessions of a Cockney Temple Dancer.
Lila Dance proved popular with rural touring audiences when they toured the immersive The Deluge last year. They return to village halls from November with The Hotel Experience, in which a man checks into a hotel the night before his wedding to discover that all is not as it seems.
And just in time for the Christmas season, Uchenna Dance will tour its first work for families. Their version of Hansel and Gretel will offer a new take on a classic fairytale. The company is known for blending dance styles from vogueing, house and waacking, to contemporary and African dance, to create shows that are entertaining and informative.
More info: www.ruraltouring.org//rural-touring-dance