Emanuel Gat Dance: Winter Variations
Booking 02 November 2010 to 03 November 2010
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Emanuel Gat Dance: Winter Variations
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Winter Variations is the latest work from Israeli choreographer Emanuel Gat. This stunning new piece represents the continuation of themes explored in previous work Winter Voyage, which Gat presented at Sadler’s Wells in 2008.
Set to a soundtrack ranging from Mahler to Riyad Al-Sunbati, Winter Variations is an intimate duet performed on a vast stage. Gat uses the scale to intensify the actions, relations and intentions of the choreography, allowing the space to become almost a third character in itself.
Co-created and performed with regular collaborator Roy Assaf, with whom Gat shares a rare physical telepathy, moments of dance from Winter Voyage are developed into full chapters of complex choreography and elaborated sequences of human drama.
Founded in Tel Aviv in 2004, and now based in France, Emanuel Gat Dance is renowned for creating visually alluring choreography, brimming with passion and drama.
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Jasmin Vardimon Company: 7734
Booking 25 November 2010 to 26 November 2010
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Jasmin Vardimon Company: 7734
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Jasmin Vardimon has consistently illustrated the power to grip and seduce audiences; exciting with athletic prowess, lulling through quiet beauty, and tearing our emotions with a gutsy and dramatic voice of intention.
Man's inhumanity to man never ceases to stun each generation. 7734 takes a contemporary view of the legacy of brutality and manipulation of power, evoking personal stories from around the world; it questions the human forces and weaknesses that have manufactured hell on earth whilst illuminating both our
capacity for survival and the poetry of hope.
For 7734, Vardimon's visceral choreography and use of video integration dramatically combine with text, music and awe-inspiring performances by a nine-strong company. Drawing the worlds of dance and new writing together, 7734 is co-commissioned by Sadler’s Wells and Soho Theatre.
Following the sell-out success of Yesterday at the Peacock Theatre, 7734 marks the company's highly anticipated debut on the Sadler's Wells main stage.
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Rambert Dance Company
Booking 09 November 2010 to 13 November 2010
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Rambert Dance Company
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Constantly evolving, Rambert Dance Company remains one of Britain’s finest and most popular modern dance companies. This November its unique heritage collides with two brand new creations, in a programme of four powerful and exhilarating works at Sadler´s Wells.
Christopher Bruce’s classic and ever popular Swansong makes a triumphant return to the Company’s repertoire. As relevant and as topical today as when it was first created in 1987, Swansong’s theme of torture and interrogation for three dancers is set to move and inspire a whole new generation of audiences.
Making its London premiere is Australian choreographer Garry Stewart’s high energy new work, Infinity, which explores the dramatic and often brutal passage towards life’s inevitable end, pitting the dancers against each other in an avalanche of striking and relentless physical imagery.
Gran Partita, by American “punk ballerina” Karole Armitage completes the programme. Set to movements from Mozart’s heart-melting piece of the same name, this luminous, elegant and romantic work allows the audience to dream.
An exciting addition to the programme is a brand new short work from Rambert dancer/choreographer Melanie Teall, L’eveil. Inspired loosely by aspects of femininity and influenced by the power of the female voice through song, it is performed to Kurt Weill’s Je ne t’aime pas and Leslie Bricusse’s Feeling Good (made famous by Nina Simone), with costumes inspired by world-renowned fashion designer Roland Mouret. L’eveil was created in July this year for Rambert’s 2007 choreographic Workshop Season to great acclaim.
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Shoes
Booking 03 September 2010 to 11 September 2010
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Shoes
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Inspired by one of the great passions of the modern age, Shoes explores the gamut of footwear, from the highs of the Louboutin to the lows of the croc. Composed by Richard Thomas, in his first large-scale production since the legendary West End and Broadway hit Jerry Springer - The Opera, and featuring the work of a team of leading choreographers, Shoes is a dance revue that sees life told from street-level perspective with wit, irreverence and affection.
Shoes features choreography and direction by multi-award winning Stephen Mear (Mary Poppins, Sweet Charity, The Little Mermaid), acclaimed as “the best showbiz choreographer we have” (Guardian). Alongside Mear, Sadler’s Wells has invited leading choreographers Aletta Collins (Bloom, The Tempest, Jesus Christ Superstar) Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui (Zero Degrees, Sutra) and Kate Prince (Into the Hoods) to create dance numbers inspired by Thomas’s songs.
Featuring a cast of 12 dancers, four singers, including Australian singing sensation Kate Miller-Heidke, Olivier Award nominee Alison Jiear, So You Think You Can Dance’s Chloe Campbell, Mandy Montanez and Drew Maconie, plus Zoonation’s Teneisha Bonner and winner of the Critics Circle prize for Best Newcomer Aaron Sillis and a live band, the show also includes films by artist and music video director Tim Hope (videos for Coldplay and R.E.M and projections for The Mighty Boosh UK tour).
Tanguera
Booking to 22 August 2010
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Tanguera
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UK premiere this summer
Boasting a company of over 50 dancers and musicians, Tanguera tells a story of unrequited love in early 20th century Buenos Aires.
When Giselle, a young French woman, arrives in Argentina as one of the first waves of European immigrants, she meets Lorenzo, a port worker who falls in love with her at first sight. But as Giselle falls deeper into Buenos Aires' seedy under- world, Lorenzo must fight to win her love.
This is an adrenaline-charged journey through the world of tango with award-winning choreography by renowned Argentinean dance star Mora Godoy, and a seductive score performed by a full orchestra with one of Argentina’s most celebrated tango singers Marianela live on stage.
A huge success in its native Buenos Aires, where it ran for 18 months, this spellbinding new show has dazzled audiences in New York, Paris, Berlin, Madrid and Tokyo. London audiences will be swept up in the drama of the Tanguera as it makes its UK premiere this summer.
"The most celebrated musical in Buenos Aires" - LA GUíA DEL OCIO, Argentina
"A definite must-see" - BERLINER ZEITUNG, Germany
Matthew Bourne's Cinderella
Booking 30 November 2010 to 23 January 2011
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Matthew Bourne's Cinderella
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Sadler’s Wells Resident Company Matthew Bourne’s New Adventures returns with a brand new production of the all-time classic fairytale Cinderella.
Set in London during the Second World War, Matthew Bourne's interpretation of Prokofiev 's haunting score has, at its heart, a true wartime romance. A chance meeting results in a magical night for Cinderella and her dashing young RAF pilot, together just long enough to fall in love before being parted by the horrors of the Blitz.
First seen in the West End in 1997, but now completely revised in this brand new production featuring Lez Brotherston’s Olivier award winning designs, and new lighting by Neil Austin. The production also features sensational sound design by Paul Groothius, which takes the audience into the heart of Prokofiev ’s magnificent score and the aural world of war-torn London. This will be the first production presented by New Adventures to have a specially commissioned recording of the score in Surround Sound.
Bourne's vivid storytelling has never been more heart-stopping and touching, creating a unique and unforgettable depiction of a familiar and beloved fable.
Bourne has made a war time story accessible to a post war generation…Cinderella has complexity, subtlety and surprises and is a worthy sequel to Swan lake - THE EVENING STANDARD
The music, with its heavy industrial rhythms and ominous orchestration, has always had an intractable harshness for a fairy tale ballet. Bourne makes us hear it as a wartime score, exploiting all the elements that many other choreographers try to ignore - THE GUARDIAN
Heartbreaking….One leaves the theatre talking of Bourne’s extraordinary overlap of dream and realism: an overlap that takes one back to the core of the Cinderella story and Prokofiev’s score - THE FINANCIAL TIMES
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Akram Khan: Vertical Road
Booking 05 October 2010 to 09 October 2010
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Akram Khan: Vertical Road
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Akram Khan, one of the UK’s most innovative and influential dance talents, returns to Sadler's Wells with his latest full scale contemporary ensemble work, Vertical Road.
Working with a world-class cast of performers from across Asia, Europe and the Middle East, with a specially commissioned score by long-term collaborator Nitin Sawhney, Khan draws inspiration from universal myths of angels that symbolise ‘ascension’ - the road between the earthly and the spiritual, the Vertical Road.
Visually inspiring and spiritually profound, Vertical Road draws on the performers’ different cultural interpretation of the human odyssey. In Akram Khan’s words: “in a world moving so fast, with the growth of technology and information, I am somehow inclined to move against this current, in search of what it might mean to be connected not just spiritually, but also vertically”.
AKRAM KHAN DOES NOT PERFORM IN THIS SHOW.
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Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre
Booking 14 September 2010 to 06 February 2011
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Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre
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Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater returns to Sadler's Wells Theatre with two programmes that showcase the extraordinary artistry of a company that has changed the face of American dance over the course of more than half a century.
Both programmes feature the classic Revelations, the most seen modern dance work in the world, choreographed by Alvin Ailey and first performed in 1960. A piece that celebrates and pays tribute to American dance music and history; it explores a journey from deepest grief to unbound joy and continues to inspire audiences whenever it is performed.
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater
PROGRAMME ONE:
Programme One includes the gripping solo In/Side, plus Dancing Spirit, a piece that fuses movement from Brazil, Cuba and the USA. Suite Otis is a playful battle of the sexes set to some of Otis Redding’s best-loved songs.
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater
PROGRAMME TWO:
Highlights of Programme Two include a brand new work from acclaimed choreographer Christopher Huggins and Artistic Director Judith Jamison’s 1993 Emmy-award winning production Hymn; a tribute to company founder Alvin Ailey.
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Birmingham Royal Ballet
Booking 12 October 2010 to 16 October 2010
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Birmingham Royal Ballet
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Birmingham Royal Ballet returns to Sadler´s Wells with two contrasting evenings – the all time classic love story Romeo and Juliet, and triple bill Pointes of View.
Programme 1: Romeo and Juliet
It’s love at first dance when Romeo Montague tricks his way into the Capulet’s masked ball and falls madly in love with the beautiful Juliet. The passion between them is forbidden but the star-crossed lovers hatch a perilous plot to be together. With a sweeping score by Prokofiev and soaring choreography by Kenneth MacMillan.
Programme 2: Pointes of View
includes: Concerto / Slaughter on 10th Avenue / In the Upper Room
Pointes of View features MacMillan’s uplifting Concerto, a sparkling display of classical ballet. Slaughter on Tenth Avenue was created as part of the Rodgers and Hart musical On Your Toes, and is a tale of a happygo-lucky hero who literally has to dance for his life. In the Upper Room is an exhilarating, athletic ballet by American dance phenomenon Twyla Tharp. Philip Glass’s score builds to an emotional peak with dancing that critics described as ‘quick witted and even quicker footed’.
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Rosas: The Song
Booking 19 October 2010 to 21 October 2010
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Rosas: The Song
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A leading light in contemporary dance, Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker returns to Sadler’s Wells with her company Rosas to present the UK premiere of The Song.
The Song is about a world that is rushing in on itself, moving at an ever faster tempo. At the heart of this whirlwind of change stands the human body, at the eye of the storm.
Created in collaboration with visual artists Ann Veronica Janssens and Michel François, The Song is performed by ten dancers – nine men and one woman – on an empty stage, which has been stripped to the essentials of light, sound and movement. This arid landscape gives life to new possibilities of movement, with the performers creating constantly shifting patterns – a combination of mathematical precision and human inventiveness.
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Russell Maliphant Company: Afterlight
Booking 28 September 2010 to 29 September 2010
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Russell Maliphant Company: Afterlight
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Sadler’s Wells Associate Artist Russell Maliphant returns with a brand new work, presented for two nights only.
This new full evening work titled AfterLight contains the solo AfterLight (Part One) which was shown at West End in October 2009 as part of In the Spirit of Diaghilev. The 15 minute solo, nominated for the 2010 Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Dance Production, has now been developed into a full-length piece for three dancers.
Using photographs of Vaslav Nijinksy and his geometric drawings as inspiration, AfterLight (Part One) was developed by Maliphant with lighting designer Michael Hulls and with projections evolved in collaboration with Es Devlin, onedotzero and animator Jan Urbanowski. It features Satie's music, Gnosiennes 1-4.
AfterLight continues the relationship with dancer Daniel Proietto, who is now joined by 2 female dancers. The new work features music by Andy Cowton, composer of the hugely successful Maliphant pieces Two and Push, and animation work by James Chorley.
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Pina Bausch – Iphigenie auf Tauris
Booking 27 October 2010 to 31 October 2010
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Pina Bausch – Iphigenie auf Tauris
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One of the most influential choreographers of our time, Pina Bausch has inspired generations of audiences and artists with an impact that is hard to overestimate. Her death in 2009 leaves a legacy that will be felt for generations to come.
Her company Tanztheater Wuppertal returns to Sadler’s Wells with Iphigenie auf Tauris, based on Christoph Willibald Gluck’s opera. First created in 1974 and very rarely performed, Iphigenie comes to London for the first time.
Regarded by many as Gluck’s masterpiece, Iphigenie fuses dance, music, chorus and solo arias into adramatic whole. Gluck conceived the work as Greek tragedy, dealing with the most profound and intense emotions.
Pina Bausch’s staging uses her full company to convey the drama of the opera, with the singers ranged at either side of the stage. The grandeur and purity of the score is conveyed through dance images of extraordinary beauty and power; this is Bausch’s choreography at its most harmonious and lyrical.
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Wayne McGregor | Random Dance : FAR
Booking 17 November 2010 to 20 November 2010
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Wayne McGregor | Random Dance : FAR
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WORLD PREMIERE
Wayne McGregor’s dynamic style and ground-breaking collaborative approach across dance, film, music, visual art, technology and science has seen him create a string of truly unique, interdisciplinary work over the years. His latest work FAR is no exception.
Danced by an ensemble of ten incredible performers and the finest exponents of McGregor’s singular style, FAR is set to a new, haunting score by electronic superstar Ben Frost.
A prolific dance maker, and the first Resident Choreographer of The Royal Ballet to come from contemporary dance, in the past year alone McGregor has delivered world premieres for New York City Ballet, Stuttgart Ballet and The Royal Opera. He has choreographed movies (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire) and created headlining sets for Glastonbury. In 2011, McGregor will make his debut with Bolshoi Ballet. His company Wayne McGregor | Random Dance is a Resident Company of Sadler’s Wells.
Theatre historySadler's Wells Theatre is a major performing arts venue located on on Rosebery Avenue, Clerkenwell in the London Borough of Islington. The present day theatre is the most recent of six theatres that have existed on the same site since 1683. The building which stands today consists of two performance spaces, the 1,500 seat main auditorium and the Lilian Baylis Studio, with extensive rehearsal rooms and technical facilities also housed within the site. Sadler's Wells is recognised as one of the United Kingdom's foremost dance venues and producing houses, with a number of associated artists and companies who produce original works for the theatre. Sadler's Wells is also responsible for the management of the Peacock Theatre in the West End. History First theatre and pleasure gardens Richard Sadler opened a "Musick House" in 1683, the second public theatre opened in London after the restoration. The name Sadler's Wells originates from his name and the rediscovery of monastic springs[1] on his property. The well water being thought to have medicinal properties, Sadler was prompted to claim that drinking the water from the wells would be effective against "dropsy, jaundice, scurvy, green sickness and other distempers to which females are liable – ulcers, fits of the mother, virgin's fever and hypochondriacal distemper". In 1698 Thomas Guidott the noted Doctor of Physik who popularised the waters of Bath wrote what he called "A true and exact account of Sadlers Well, or, The new mineral-waters lately found out at Islington treating of its nature and virtues: together with an enumeration of the chiefest diseases which it is good for, and against which it may be used, and the manner and order of taking of it". This brought the health giving properties of the hot mineral waters to the country and soon the aristocracy started to arrive to partake in them. Thus, this still quite rural London location became famous for both water and for music, but as more wells were dug and the exclusiveness of Sadler's Wells declined, so did the quality of the entertainment provided – along with the quality of the clientele who were described as "vermin trained up to the gallows" by a contemporary, while, by 1711, Sadler's Wells was characterized as "a nursery of debauchery". By the mid-1700s, the existence of two "Theatres Royal" –in Covent Garden and Drury Lane– severely limited the ability of other London theatres to legally perform any drama combined with music, thus rather limiting for opera. Sadler's Wells continued its downward spiral. Second and third theatres Since the Theatres Royal confined themselves to operating during the autumn and winter, Sadler's Wells filled the gap in the entertainment market with its summer season, traditionally launched on Easter Monday. Thomas Rosoman, Manager from 1746 to 1771, established the Wells' pedigree for opera production and oversaw the construction of a new stone built theatre, in just seven weeks –at a cost of £4,225– which opened in April 1765. The latter half of the 18th century was to see a wide variety of performances. There were patriotic plays and pageants such as "A Fig For The French", which was produced in order to restore national morale after a heavy British defeat in a sea-battle off Grenada at the hands of the French and Spanish fleets. A stirring spectacle reflecting the Fall of the Bastille won from the previously hostile Public Advertiser newspaper the enthusiastic review that: "...Finer scenes of greater effect have not been produced at any Theatre for many years". With the construction of a large tank, flooded from the nearby New River, an Aquatic Theatre was used to stage extravagant naval melodramas, such as The Siege of Gibraltar. The theatre also staged successful adaptations of popular novels of the time, such as Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, and Thomas Blake's Little Nell; or, The Old Curiosity Shop, which ran here from 11–16 and 18–23 January 1841.[2] Just as Sadler's Wells seemed at its lowest ebb, an unexpected champion arrived in the shape of distinguished actor-manager Samuel Phelps (1804–1878). His advent coincided with the passing of the Theatres Act 1843 which broke the duopoly in drama of the Theatres Royal and so Phelps was able to introduce a programme of Shakespeare to the Wells. His productions (from 1844–62), notably of Macbeth (1844), Antony and Cleopatra (1849) and Pericles (1854), were much admired by the time he left Sadler's Wells in 1862. The well-known actress Isabella Glyn (1823–1889) made her first notable appearance as Lady Macbeth on this stage. The latter part of the 19th century saw the pendulum swing back again to melodrama by the 1860s. This period of the theatre's history is affectionately depicted in Arthur Wing Pinero's play Trelawny of the 'Wells' (1898), which portrays Sadler's Wells as outmoded by the new fashion for realism. The theatre declined until, by 1875, plans to turn the theatre in a bath house were proposed and, for a while, the new craze of roller skating was catered to, as the theatre was converted into a roller-skating rink and later a prize fight arena. The theatre was condemned as a dangerous structure in 1878.[2] Fourth theatre After re-opening as a theatre in 1879, it became a music hall and featured the legendary performers Marie Lloyd and Harry Champion among its stars. Roy Redgrave, founder of the theatrical dynasty also graced the boards. Taking on another purpose, the theatre was converted into a cinema. In December 1896, patrons were amazed by the moving pictures of the Theatregraph with film of Persimmon winning the Epsom Derby and a saucy vignette entitled "The Soldier and His Sweetheart Spooning on a Seat". But still the overall trend was down until Lilian Baylis, who ran the Old Vic Theatre Company, agreed to help set up a charitable foundation to buy the run-down Sadler's Wells, which after a succession of managements in the 1900s, had become increasingly run-down and had been closed in 1915. Fifth theatre By 1925, Baylis clearly felt that her Old Vic was enjoying a healthy adolescence. In that year, as a result of her ceaseless labors, she invited the Duke of Devonshire to make a public appeal for funds in order to set up a charitable Foundation designed to buy Sadler's Wells for the nation. Since the committee included such diverse and influential figures as Winston Churchill and Stanley Baldwin, G. K. Chesterton and John Galsworthy, Dame Ethel Smyth and Sir Thomas Beecham, it was not long before enough money had been amassed to buy the freehold. Also in 1925, Baylis began collaborating with the ballet teacher Ninette de Valois, a former dancer with Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. At the time, de Valois was teaching in her own dance school, the Academy of Choreographic Art, but had contacted Baylis with a proposal to form a repertory ballet company and school. So in 1931 when Sadler's Wells was reopened, de Valois was allocated rehearsal rooms in the theatre and established the Sadler's Wells Ballet School and the Vic-Wells Ballet. The ballet company performed at both the Sadler's Wells and Old Vic theatres. The company grew as the school trained new dancers to join the company. The first principal dancers of the Vic-Wells ballet were Dame Alicia Markova and Sir Anton Dolin and the founder choreographer was Sir Frederick Ashton, all three having been working with the Ballet Club of Dame Marie Rambert. Designed by FGM Chancellor of Matcham & Co, the new theatre opened on January 6, 1931 with an appropriate production of Twelfth Night and a cast headed by Ralph Richardson as Sir Toby Belch and John Gielgud as Malvolio. In the beginning of Ms. Baylis’ influence over Sadler's Wells, it was intended that the two theatres should each offer alternating programs of drama and opera. This happened for a short while, but it soon became clear that it was not only impractical, but it also made dubious commercial sense since drama flourished at the Old Vic but lagged behind opera and dance in popularity at the Wells. The Vic-Wells Opera Company was the name of the opera company performing at Sadler's Wells. By 1933/34 season the acting company under Tyrone Guthrie included a formidable range of acting talent in the person of Charles Laughton, Peggy Ashcroft, Flora Robson, Athene Seyler, Marius Goring and James Mason. By 1940, while the theatre was closed during the Second World War, the ballet company toured throughout the country, and upon its return changed its name to the Sadler's Wells Ballet. Similarly, the opera company toured to return as Sadler's Wells Opera Company, and it reopened the theatre with Benjamin Britten's Peter Grimes. In 1946, with the re-opening of the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden, the ballet company was invited to become the resident company there. De Valois decided that a second company was needed to continue ballet performances at Sadler's Wells, and so the Sadler's Wells Theatre Ballet was formed, with John Field as Artistic Director. The Sadler's Wells company later relocated to Covent Garden, where it was incorporated into the Royal Ballet's charter in 1956, becoming the The Royal Ballet Touring Company. After a number of years as a touring group, it returned to Sadler's Wells in 1976, becoming the Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet. In 1987, the Birmingham Hippodrome and Birmingham City Council invited Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet to re-locate to Birmingham. It did so in 1990 and changes its name to Birmingham Royal Ballet. Since the departure of the company, there has not been a resident ballet company at Sadler's Wells. The Sadler's Wells Opera Company moved out of Sadler's Wells Theatre to the Coliseum Theatre in 1968 and was later renamed English National Opera. Sadler's Wells Theatre then became a temporary home both for foreign companies and those within the UK looking for a metropolitan shop-window. In addition, Sadler's Wells, strategically positioned at some remove from the West End hot-house, was seen as the ideal launching-pad for artists at the outset of their careers. Throughout the 1970s a rich diversity of attractions appeared at Sadler's Wells, recaptured something of its traditional eclecticism. On Rosebery Avenue one could see everything from Handel Opera to the Black Theatre of Prague, to the Netherlands Dance Theatre with its controversial nudity. Also appearing during this period were Merce Cunningham, Marcel Marceau, the Kabuki Theatre, the Dance Theatre of Harlem and the Kodo Drummers from Japan. However, such a diverse programme did prevent the Theatre from having a consistent public image. Briefly in the 1980s, the theatre established the New Sadler's Wells Opera company to play Gilbert and Sullivan and other light opera. The company had some success for a few years and then severed its relationship with the theatre around 1986 and became a touring company. It finally went out of business in 1989. The Lilian Baylis Theatre opened in October 1988 and it appeared that a permanent theatre company might emerge, but this was limited by funding difficulties. The first performances of Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake –which uniquely included an all male cast of swans– took place in the small studio theatre in 1995, before transferring to the West End. In 1994 Ian Albery became Chief Executive of Sadler's Wells and presided over the planning and eventual rebuilding of the theatre. On 30 June, 1996, the last ever performance was given at the old theatre before the bulldozers moved in. On St. Valentine's Day the following February a more unusual ceremony took place when Ian Albery buried a time capsule under the centre stalls of the new building. Sixth theatre The current theatre opened on 11 October 1998 with a performance by Rambert Dance Company. The £54 million project was one of the first projects to receive funding from the National Lottery– which contributed £42 million. The new design gave a stage which was wider and deeper and able to accommodate much larger companies and productions than the one it replaced. A new layout to the auditorium accommodated more seats. An extension at the side of the building provided a new ticket office and foyers rising to the full height of the theatre, provided easier audience access to all levels and included bars, cafes and exhibition spaces. As well as the 1,500 seat main auditorium, Sadler's Wells also has a base at the Peacock Theatre near Aldwych. The rebuilt theatre retains the Grade II listing applied to the former theatre in 1950[4]. It also retains access to the remains of the historic wells that still lie beneath the theatre. The architect was RHWL, the acoustic consultant was Arup Acoustics. When Ian Albery retired as Chief Executive in October 2002 he was succeeded by Jean Luc Choplin, who had recently worked for Disneyland in Paris and Los Angeles and at one time worked with Rudolf Nureyev as a Managing Director of the Paris Opera Ballet. Although his contract ran until 2007, in January 2004 Choplin announced that he would be taking up a post at the Théâtre du Châtelet, Paris in 2006 and left shortly afterwards. Under the Artistic Directorship of Alistair Spalding since 2004, Sadler’s Wells has expanded to become a production house as well as a receiving house hosting performances by visiting companies from the UK and around the world. Balletboyz Michael Nunn and William Trevitt, Matthew Bourne’s New Adventures, Sylvie Guillem, Akram Khan, Jonzi D, Russell Maliphant, Wayne McGregor, Jasmin Vardimon and Christopher Wheeldon are all Associate Artists/Companies at Sadler’s Wells. This creates opportunities for them to work alongside each other and other collaborators in developing new work. It also contains the 200-seat Lilian Baylis Theatre. Sadler’s Wells also programmes the Peacock Theatre, Portugal Street, in London’s West End. Breakin' Convention , the International Festival of hip hop dance theatre has been produced annually by Sadler’s Wells since 2004. Alistair Spalding had been Director of Programming at Sadler’s Wells since 2000. He became Interim Chief Executive & Artistic Director in August 2004, taking up the role officially in March 2005. zero degrees, a collaboration between dance artists Akram Khan and Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, visual artist Antony Gormley and composer Nitin Sawhney and PUSH, a programme of work made by Russell Maliphant for himself and Sylvie Guillem, are just two of the award winning productions[5] to emerge from the new Sadler’s Wells. In March 2009 Sadler’s Wells launched a new dance competition named Global Dance Contest. The competition will run for four years, with a winner receiving a cash prize and the chance to perform at Sadler’s Wells Sampled, the taster weekend which each January showcases the huge range of dance to be seen throughout the year at the theatre.
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