Dance company brings triple-bill of powerful choreography to Crawley’s Hawth

Joss Arnott Dance presents a triple bill of new, powerful choreography, performed by the company’s trademark all-female cast and accompanied by live performance by Grammy award-winner and 2015 Polar Music Prize laureate Dame Evelyn Glennie.

In the collaboration, James Keane, Joss Arnott Dance’s composer and Glennie have together created a thundering percussive score – which she will perform live onstage – for the climax of the triple bill, Wide Awakening, created by Joss Arnott for five female dancers.

Joss said: “I was keen to do something special to mark my company’s fifth anniversary. I had choreographed a piece to one of Evelyn Glennie’s tracks for my A-Levels and had always wanted to work with her. So I emailed her office, and they emailed straight back and said come for a visit! So, together with my regular composer James Keane we met Evelyn and I think she was immediately impressed by our artistic ambition and vision.

“For me, the link between dance and music is intrinsic, and it’s the driving force behind my movement style – and I choose dancers who can embody that ideal. I can always tell what makes a musical dancer. You almost see the music; it’s not two separate things. You hear it, you feel it, you see it.”

Dame Evelyn added: “I liked the fact that Joss specialises in the female form. His collaboration with James was also interesting to me, so I knew that musically we would be in good hands. Working with dancers is challenging. It pushes my boundaries. The way you feed off the dancers and their energy, and the way they feed off the music, you realise you are part of a collage.

“And I love how dancers use space, how they musically use space, so that you can almost hear the sound of the movement.”

James Keane added: “For Wide Awakening, Evelyn and I went into the studio and started to explore sound palettes with different instruments, experimenting with mixing live and synthesised sounds.

“The inspiration for the music comes from Joss’ choreography which tends to be very powerful, very physical, so it’s choreography that can withstand very powerful music.

“And although there’s a lot of very delicate metal and some very beautiful marimba, the music is about rhythm, drive and complexity.

“But it’s also about space – there has to be space, because the first ten minutes will hopefully make the audience’s brains melt.”

The triple bill also features 24, a quartet inspired by the themes and concepts within the recent Alexander McQueen V&A exhibition Savage Beauty and a solo, V.

To find out more about Joss Arnott Dance visit www.jossarnottdance.com.

Tickets for the show cost £15.50 (discounts £13.50, schools £1).

Call 01293 553636 or visit www.hawth.co.uk.

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