Latest news with #Sadler'sWells
Times
05-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Times
Breakin' Convention review — a window on the world of hip-hop dance theatre
Once a year Sadler's Wells goes hip-hop mad. For more than 20 years the London venue's Breakin' Convention festival — the world's largest showcase of hip-hop dance-theatre — has highlighted the transformation of street dance into one of the most important influences on our dance stages. Over three days the Wells was bursting with performances, workshops, live DJ sets and audience participation in the foyers. I went along to check out the Saturday night line-up, which brought together talent from the UK, the Netherlands, Belgium and France. If nothing else, the programme showed how varied and innovative the art form has become. No longer is it just about head spinning and heavy beats. The evening began with Jonzi D, the festival's indefatigable artistic director, whipping
BBC News
02-05-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Why now is the time to explore outer East London
A few miles from East London's perennially hip neighbourhoods, an explosion of art and culture is transforming a once-neglected stretch into one of the city's hottest destinations. East London. Two words that, if you know anything about the UK's capital, often conjure up opposing opinions. There are those who mourn its supposedly waning hip factor – regaling stories of 1980s warehouse art shows or squat parties – while deploring the rampant commercialism of its supercharged epicentre, Shoreditch. Others, meanwhile, will rave about new independent galleries or small-plate restaurants in nearby Dalston, Bethnal Green or Hackney. Yet, the general consensus is that East London's long-buzzing arts and food scenes are continuing to move ever further out, driven – as in other world cities – by the relentless search for a few miles east of these oversubscribed neighbourhoods are two boroughs that are lesser known to visitors and have been quietly emerging as London's next artsy enclave: Waltham Forest and Newham. Stretching north from Stratford up to Leyton and Walthamstow, this once-unfashionable outer area hasn't always matched East London's brand of cool. And yet in spring 2025, it's witnessing a cultural explosion, with new museums, theatres and bars and some of the city's biggest arts openings that are putting this under-the-radar corner of London on the map. The catalyst for these boroughs' rise was the 2012 London Olympics, which transformed the area's scrapyards and brownfield land into the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park – an oasis of rivers, canals and water meadows bordered by Stratford, Leyton and Hackney. "The Olympics brought a huge amount of investment in infrastructure, transport links and housing," said Britannia Morton, co-chief executive of Sadler's Wells, the world-famous Islington-based dance theatre founded in the 18th Century. "The Olympic Park, where our new Sadler's Wells East is based, was created converting marshland into this beautiful environment." Sadler's Wells East, which opened in February 2025, is located in East Bank, a £1.1bn new waterside cultural quarter in the Olympic Park. "[It was] formerly known as Fridge Mountain – a dumping ground for old electronic appliances," said Morton. The first landmark to open here was the University of the Arts' London College of Fashion in October 2023, which has galleries and a cafe open to the public. Sadler's Wells East was built in Italian red brick and houses a 550-seat state-of-the-art auditorium and six dance studios. "Whether you're interested in ballet, hip-hop, kathak or contemporary, our eclectic programme brings the most innovative work created locally, nationally and internationally to Stratford," said Morton. Visitors can enjoy free events in its public spaces, including lunchtime dance classes on the community dance floor, as well as a bar and restaurant. There are panoramic views from its rooftop over the London Aquatics Centre, Sir Anish Kapoor's 114.5m ArcelorMittal Orbit (the UK's largest sculpture) and the London Stadium. Across the park at the Here East innovation and tech campus (formerly the London Olympics Media Centre) is the glass-fronted V&A East Storehouse, opening 31 May 2025. It's the first half of the new V&A East, whose South Kensington-based original is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, with more than 2.8 million objects in its permanent collection. This first instalment is essentially a new home for the V&A East's reserve collection (hence the name "Storehouse"), and "a magical new behind-the-scenes museum experience", according to its deputy director and COO Tim Reeve. With 100 curated mini displays, its half a million works range from the Glastonbury Festival Archive to Dior haute couture and mid-century furniture. Its world-first Order an Object experience allows anyone to book an appointment to view anything from Roman frescoes to Elton John's costumes. It will also be home to the new David Bowie Centre, opening 13 September 2025, displaying the singer's outfits, lyrics and archive. "It's a new standard for access to national collections," said Reeve. "We're encouraging visitors to feel empowered to make their own journeys through the V&A's global collections." The second half, the five-storey V&A East Museum, is opening in East Bank in spring 2026. Its main exhibition hall will celebrate leading artists, designers and performers in major shows, and its galleries will narrate stories of East London's creative and manufacturing heritage. Elsewhere in East Bank, BBC Music Studios, which will house the BBC Symphony Orchestra and host recording sessions and live performances, is slated to open in late 2025 or early 2026. And that's not all. A couple of miles north in Walthamstow, another major cultural opening is happening. While this diverse north-east London suburb has long been thriving – its pretty village centre, some of which dates to the 15th Century, is indeed a gentrification hotspot – the imposing new Soho Theatre Walthamstow will further raise the neighbourhood's profile when it opens on 2 May 2025. A former cinema designed in 1930 by architect Cecil Masey, the distinctive building was inspired by the Moorish architecture of the 13th-Century Alhambra palace in Granada, Spain. In its mid-20th-Century heyday, it also hosted gigs by The Beatles, Buddy Holly, Roy Orbison, Dusty Springfield, Chuck Berry and the Rolling Stones – before closing in 2003. More like this:• London Overground: Four stops to explore the 'real' London• Five unusual historical experiences in London• See another side to London at eight of its most unusual tourist attractions When it finally reopens, with its original Art Deco stylings revived, the Soho Theatre Walthamstow will have a 960-seat Grade II-listed auditorium, studio spaces, four bars and a restaurant. (In comparison, its current West End location has a capacity of just 240.) "This is the first time we've had a professional theatre in the area," said executive assistant Annie Jones, who worked on the restoration project for more than five years. "The programme will list up to nine shows a night – a mix of comedy, cabaret and theatre all rooted in its community. Waltham Forest has always been welcoming, with its vibrancy, multiculturalism and openness, and its spirit has only grown." Connecting Stratford, the Olympic Park and Walthamstow is Leyton. This once-maligned area is now home to one of the most up-and-coming strips in East London. Previously more synonymous with fly-tipping, Tilbury Road railway arches (a narrow alleyway opposite Leyton Midland Road station) has been transformed by new arrivals in the last year alone, including three bars, a bakery, a Caribbean restaurant and two soon-to-open artisan cafes. The opening of two popular microbreweries in the last few years on the same stretch sparked this sudden transformation: Gravity Well, nestled in the station arch itself, and the edgier Libertalia taproom, named after a mythical anarchist colony in the 17th Century. For Leyton-raised Danny Saunders, owner of tropical cocktail bar Leyton Calling (which opened in summer 2024) and cosy candlelit pub Chop Shop Tavern (which opened in February 2025), it's a personal coup, having known the area since the 1980s. "I've come full circle," he said, with a smile. "My latest bar is in the actual arch where I set up my first car repair business back in the day." Leyton's rise as a whole has, however, been something of a slow-burn. Back in the mid-2010s, nearby Francis Road began to be taken over by independent creative businesses. "I opened here in 2017," said Aimée Madill, who owns Phlox, a bookstore, cafe and wine bar. "It was risky as it was still a 'less-developed' part of London, but local indie bookshops are more than a business, they're a sign of confidence in a community." Pedestrianised in 2017, the tree-lined street has since blossomed with chic cafes and bars: two of the latest openings are vinyl store-cum-craft beer bar Dreamhouse Records and Loop Dining, a pop-up space launched in summer 2024 to host weekly residencies from buzzy up-and-coming chefs. "Unlike Stratford," Madill said, "Leyton is characterised by small makers and creatives existing side by side with businesses who've been here decades. Most of us live here, so we've been able to revitalise, rather than reinvent, parts of the area – which adds to the sense of community." So what's next for outer East London? "Young people and families are now priced out of Hackney," said Michaela Zelenanska, who runs natural wine bar Swirl, which opened in December 2024 on Tilbury Road. "Leyton and neighbouring Leytonstone seem a logical next big thing. It's small businesses that make the place what it is." Will London continue to move ever further east? "We're already engaging with artists, audiences and community groups in Barking and Dagenham," said Morton, referencing two outer London suburbs several miles from Leyton and Stratford. "East London has always been a creative crucible." Stephen Emms is an East London resident who writes a weekly newsletter called Leytonstoner about the arts, food and drink scenes primarily in Leyton, Leytonstone, Stratford and Walthamstow. -- For more Travel stories from the BBC, follow us on Facebook, X and Instagram.
Telegraph
28-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Deepstaria, review: You'll believe a jellyfish can dance
A contemporary dance show named after a jellyfish named after a submarine? Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later. The deepstaria enigmatica, which gives Wayne McGregor's new piece its title, was itself christened in honour of the underwater vessel (the Deepstar 4000) from which Jacques Cousteau first spotted this remarkable deepwater creature – tentacle-free, I'm told, even if the ravishing photograph on the Sadler's Wells programme seems to suggest otherwise. Created for his supremely lithe and athletic nine-strong troupe, the steps essentially fifty shades of McGregorish corporeal rewiring, hyper-extension and undulation, Deepstaria is an economical 75 minutes long, and sans interval. The latter is a sensible choice on McGregor's part, given his keenness to immerse us as literally as possible in the void; a pause would risk shattering the illusion. The programme notes trumpet the set's use of Vantablack Vision, a 'light-suppression coating' (intensely black paint to you and me) used to cover instruments for use in space. The idea, as you might expect, is to intensify the sense of bodies lost in emptiness. For most of the piece, this doesn't come off quite as it might, simply because the ever-present, light-snaffling smoke tends to mask its, well, blackness – a can or two of Dulux might have done just as well. Where it does, however, come spectacularly into its own is during a passage during which it is (almost paradoxically) drenched in azure light, generating a shade not unlike Klein Blue but with even greater lustre and depth. Against this, lighting designer Theresa Baumgartner beams out curved yellow sheets of luminescence into which the dancers slip and ripple their hands, the latter suddenly transformed into small, almost playful sea-creatures. With Nicholas Becker's AI-assisted soundscape pulsating in the background, the result is really rather gorgeous. The same can, in fact, be said of Baumgartner's lighting full-stop, which finds more ways to flicker magically than you might believe possible. At one point, taking us more into the realm of extra-terrestrial sci-fi than the oceanic depths, it bathes both stage and house in small luminous rectangles so sharp you want to put one in your pocket and take it home with you. At another point, with McGregor transforming a pair of dancers (not for the first time in his canon) into something close to sea anemones, blood-red columns of light somehow seem to take us right to the womb-like bottom of the Mariana Trench. If I can't quite stretch to a fourth star, it's because, although at times impressed, I never quite found myself moved by any of this, despite McGregor's best efforts to do so. The piece often calls to mind the great Russell Maliphant and Michael Hull's tireless experiments in bodies moving through light – pieces with no more 'depth' than this, but whose sheer beauty makes the skin prickle. And those initial black undies for the cast? Come on, Sir Wayne, must try harder – although in fairness Ilaria Martello does, towards the particularly pelagic end, give the cast costumes so light and diaphanous that their ripples seem to turn the air to water. So, a considerable step up from McGregor's heinous Maddaddam of last year, though not on the same level as his startling 2023 eco-hit, UniVerse. I wouldn't necessarily mind a second 'dive', though, so he must have done something right.
The Guardian
16-02-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
The week in dance: Our Mighty Groove; Encantado
'You Are Welcome,' reads the sign, in bright red letters, above the door of the newly opened Sadler's Wells East, on the fringes of the Westfield shopping centre in Stratford, east London. Even on a rainy winter's evening, that lighted sign fulfilled its promise. Architectural practice O'Donnell + Tuomey have provided the redeveloped Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park with a warm embrace of a red-brick structure; inside, an airy foyer with bright artwork and its own mini stage. Six dance studios upstairs provide equally generous and well-proportioned working spaces for professionals as well as students at Academy Breakin' Convention and the Rose Choreographic School. So far, so very good, though on a bitterly cold opening night, with an immersive show, it might have been an idea to offer a free cloakroom; you could sense the goodwill evaporating as people rummaged for their debit cards. It was best to check coats in because Vicki Igbokwe-Ozoagu's Our Mighty Groove, first seen at the original Sadler's Wells in Islington 12 years ago, had been expanded to show off the capabilities of 550-seat auditorium – and to get everyone dancing. The show begins with the audience seated, as the Mighty Groove nightclub gets ready for business. Inspired by the choreographer's own experience when clubbing in New York, the mood is friendly, as the harassed club owner (Dani Harris-Waters) gets his feet stuck on the drink-sticky floor, and the bouncer (expansively gifted Cache Thake) prepares to propose to his girl. Warring divas, a shy first-timer and smart girl groups all turn up ready to party to a sensational, Ghanaian-flavoured score from Kweku Aacht and Warren 'Flamin Beatz' Morgan-Humphreys. In a cast of 19, the professional dancers of Uchenna Dance, particularly Shanelle Clemenson, inevitably made more impact than the local dancers recruited to make up the numbers, but the whole thing had energy and style. It felt slightly lost, though, on a stage the size of the one at Sadler's Wells East (which replicates the dimensions of its sister venue). In the second half, when the seats were retracted and the audience walked through the nightclub entrance to do their own two-step as the action unfolded on surrounding raised platforms, the show took off. It was great fun. Over at the other Sadler's Wells, meanwhile, the mood was more rarefied as Lia Rodrigues's Encantado, the final entrant in the new biennial Rose International Dance Prize, was unveiled. For a long time, its performers unroll colourful floor coverings in semi-darkness; then they crawl beneath them, naked. As the piece progresses, the dancers begin to move, wrapping the cloths around them in different configurations, becoming characters, animals, strange creatures. It had joyful moments but it was a long watch at 60 rigorous minutes. This is dance at its more theoretical – not very accessible at all. The ultimate winner of this £40,000 prize was Larsen C, by Christos Papadopoulos. I saw it only on film (which is how it was chosen for the live final), where its detailed shapes and floating steps are beautiful in closeup. It looks amazing, but on stage, in crepuscular darkness, its slow-moving progress must have been challenging. The contrast between Our Mighty Groove and Encantado bothered me. The danger of a dance prize modelled on the Turner and the Booker is that it will have the same divisive effect, creating a separation between 'serious' work and more popular endeavours. Dance in all its variety has to welcome everyone. Star ratings (out of five)Our Mighty Groove ★★★ Encantado ★★★
The Independent
08-02-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
Our Mighty Groove transports audience into heart of club life
The new venue Sadler's Wells East starts with a party. Vicki Igbokwe-Ozoagu's Our Mighty Groove begins as a theatre piece, introducing us to partygoers arriving at a club night. After the interval, it whisks the audience into the heart of the club, and into the dancing. It underlines the flexibility of the new space, part of the growing East Bank cultural quarter in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. Sadler's Wells is one of a group of big names opening centres here, including BBC Music Studios and the V&A. There's a focus on education and creation as well as performance: Sadler's Wells East will be home to Academy Breakin' Convention and the Rose Choreographic school, with six dance studios alongside the 550-seat auditorium. Designed by architects O'Donnell + Tuomey, it's an airy, welcoming building. Glass walls give views over the park, and encourage people in to the cafe and public performance spaces – there's a dance floor for free events. Circulation spaces are generous and lightly industrial, smooth concrete softened by wood. Reworking her 2013 hit for the new venue, Igbokwe-Ozoagu is determined to show off the space and its ethos. Performed by Uchenna Dance Company, the original Our Mighty Groove was all immersive, drawing on the choreographer's joyful experiences in a New York underground club. For 2025, it starts as a theatre show with the audience in their seats, before putting the seating away to take us into the heart of the club. The cast has grown from five to 19, bringing in young local dancers. In the theatrical first half, we see the club getting ready to open, with a voiceover introducing the staff and the regulars. Layered club styles give a sense of personalities, with event staff in hi-vis jackets bubbling over into hip hop and jazz steps. There's an appealing energy to the show, but the earnest storytelling can slow it down. The cast of characters has been updated to include an influencer, phone in hand, but there's little sense of the club as a space to explore deeper identities, such as gender or sexuality. For the second half, we're on our feet and on the dancefloor. Dancers and the voiceover give some simple instructions to get us moving. Dramas unfold in tiny vignettes, dancers popping up on podiums or strutting their stuff through the crowd. Our Mighty Groove is still strongest when it shows people creating themselves on the dancefloor: dance as possibility, as self-definition. Shanelle Clemenson, a member of the original cast, is glorious as the queen of old-style Vogueing, a diva who parts the waves of clubbers with effortless command.
