Can you remember every dance you've ever danced?
Monday 1 October 2018
Manchester-based award-winning theatre and performance company Quarantine brings Wallflower to the New Adelphi Theatre in Salford on Friday 19 October.
Wallflower is a five-hour marathon of dance and memory. It’s a game that alters according to the players.
The people on stage in Wallflower are trying to remember every dance they’ve ever danced. Some of them are professional dancers, some are not. Some might tell you that they can't dance at all.
There are memories of dancing alone all night at a party; of whirling across the stage at the Paris Opera Ballet; of silently, slowly revolving with a new lover on a canal boat at night; of a repeated tic - a bodily habit that feels like dancing; of walking alongside their mother; of racing with a dog across a beach; of dizzily spinning children; of weeping and dancing; of hitting the mark for Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker....
Dance memories
Every dance is added to an ever-expanding archive, a vast record of hundreds of memories exhibited alongside the performance that begins with dances from early rehearsals and always ends with the last dance...
On stage is a DJ, a disco-ball and a single chair. A performer sits in the audience, documenting every memory. To date over 2,000 dances have been recorded.
Spanning a lifetime of music, fashion, politics, friendships, parties,love and loss, Wallflower is a show about how dancing can shape our lives.
Live self-portraits
Wallflower director Richard Gregory says: “These are live self-portraits. It’s an ongoing process of tangling and untangling personal histories. As we look at the portrait of another, we might also somehow see ourselves. I’m drawn to the difference between what we think we’re showing and how we’re being seen. Dance appears to be a potent way to do this –it’s familiar to us all, whether we choose to sit on the sidelines or jump right in…"
Be it dancing in the Northern Soul clubs or The Hacienda, or dancing with our first child in our arms, we all have a story to tell about a time when dancing touched our lives, and that’s what this show celebrates so brilliantly.
Niki Woods, artistic director of the University of Salford’s New Adelphi Theatre, says: “Be it dancing in the Northern Soul clubs or The Hacienda, or dancing with our first child in our arms, we all have a story to tell about a time when dancing touched our lives, and that’s what this show celebrates so brilliantly.
“We’re really honoured to welcome Quarantine to the New Adelphi for this epic five-hour show,and I hope people from across Salford and further afield will come down to share their beloved dance memories. This will be a new kind of experience for some in the audience, as they are invited to come and go throughout the show,have a drink in our pop-up bar and take time to reflect on what they’re watching.”
LISTINGS INFORMATION
Wallflower
Friday 19 October | 5pm –10pm | £12 / £10
New Adelphi Theatre, New Adelphi Building
University Road, M5 4BR
Booking link: www.fatsoma.com/naac/nm0s1w9u/wallflower
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