Sadler's Wells

How do you pack a massive theatre for a resolutely niche contemporary dance piece? Try adding an icon of British pop music. Melanie Chisholm, aka Mec C, aka Sporty Spice, is the undoubted draw of ‘how did we get here?’. Always the Spice Girls’ strongest singer, she has already proved she has plenty more strings to her bow, publishing a bestselling autobiography and dabbling with musical theatre. Now, at the age of 49, she has returned to her dance roots, collaborating with fellow Merseysider Jules Cunningham, a veteran of the contemporary dance scene and a Sadler’s Wells New Wave associate. There is nowhere to hide in ‘how did we get here?’: the audience sits on three sides of the stage and in the front stalls for an in-the-round experience (be warned: you have to queue for the undesignated seats on a first-come, first-served basis). And the costumes, designed by Stevie Stewart, are basically sleeveless body stockings that look as though they have been sprayed on to Chisholm, Cunningham and third performer Harry Alexander. But, clearly relishing the challenge, Chisholm holds her own with these two talented and experienced dancers; she can hit a lovely ballet line, has impressive stamina and is an immensely watchable stage presence.  Vague, rather angsty programme notes don’t really help you to mine any meaning from this hour-long piece. The movement at first is tentative, pensive and heavy with melancholy, set to Nina Simone as a glitterball casts fractured light across the t

Hallelujah! The work of the late, great Leonard Cohen have inspired 'Dance Me', a project approved my the man himself before his death. Three internationally reknowned choreogrpahers are involved - Andonis Foniadakis, Annabelle Lopez Ochoa and Ihsan Rustem - and the homage to Cohen and his music and poetry is performed by Ballets Jazz Montreal. Expect to hear songs from across his career, from 'So Long, Marianne' to 'First We Take Manhattan' to 'Dance Me to the End of Love'. 

South African choreographer Dada Masilo reimagines The Rite of Spring using the movement of Tswana, the traditional dance of Botswana This is the London premiere of South African choreographer Dada Masilo’s new piece, inspired by the story of Stravinsky’s ‘The Rite of Spring’: a young girl, chosen as a sacrifice, must dance herself to death. Masilo’s company of dancers use the rhythmic and expressive movements of Tswana – the traditional dance of Botswana – to tell this story in an exciting new way, alongside a brand-new original score. The company wowed audiences with the reinvention of ‘Giselle’ in 2019, and ‘The Sacrifice’ promises to be an equally bold.

‘42nd Street’ the stage musical is something of a distant descendant of ‘42nd Street’ the classic movie: the latter is from 1933 and only actually features five songs; the former is from 1980 and features an entire songbook of tunes, bolstering originals like ‘Shuffle Off Buffalo’ and ‘You’re Getting to be a Habit with Me’ with contemporary ’30s showtunes like ‘We’re in the Money’ and ‘About a Quarter to Nine’. They’re also written by completely different people. However, they’re both classics that adapt Bradford Ropes’s novel about the struggles of a Broadway theatre company at the height of the Great Depression. This Jonathan Church-directed revival calls in a Sadler’s Wells for a couple of weeks in June, a little earlier than Sadler’s traditional theatre slot, and a bit of a spring treat for musical lovers.