DANCE UMBRELLA 1995
OCTOBER 10 - NOVEMBER 11

The return of Merce Cunningham, daredevil dancing, singular soloists and a leap into cyberspace.

"Dance is the art of the present tense"

says the great American choreographer Merce Cunningham. Dance Umbrella '95 celebrates Cunningham's confident assertion, bringing his legendary company back to London after an absence of three years, and presenting a score or more of international companies who demonstrate incontrovertibly another Cunningham dictum that:

"Dancing makes you feel more alive than anything else."


Highlights of the seventeenth Dance Umbrella Festival, happening at theatres all over London, include Ringside, Elizabeth Streb's company of daredevil supermovers from New York, exploring the high end of physicality on trampolines and large immovable objects downriver in Greenwich while a bold Anglo- French collaboration between choreographer Herve Robbe and the respected British sculptor Richard Deacon customises Riverside Studios for a kaleidoscopic dance/art event.

The brave art of the solo performance is celebrated in Dance Umbrella's " Singular Soloists" series at the ICA and The Place Theatre featuring compelling performer/creators from three countries including cool minimalist Dana Reitz, feminist diva Emilyn Claid, veteran mover Steve Paxton and the elastic torsoed Laurie Booth.

In 1994 Dance Umbrella won the Prudential Award for the second time in recognition of the strength and originality of its programming policies. The Festival's Prudential Week puys the fruits of the £25,000 award on show with London premieres of commissioned works by the Siobhan Davies Dance Company and DV8 Physical Theatre Company and the presentaton of Merce Cunningham's 'Events' at Riverside Studios to complement the company's Sadler's Wells performances.

Mark Baldwin's 'Dances for Cyberspace' sets the tone for an investigation of technological innovation in the dance world and the ever-rising Phoenix together with the companies of Richard Alston, Matthew Hawkins and Aletta Collins give audiences proof positive of the vigour aand variety of British contemporary dance.

Javier de Frutos raises skirts and eyebrows on London's South Bank; Koffi Koko and Peter Badejo give a modernist twist to African dance; Mal Pelo sounds like a Spanish goalkeeper but shows that dance is alive and kicking in the Iberian peninsular and Carlotta Ikeda's Ariadone company weds the French taste for theatricality to the starkness of Japanese butoh.

All this plus a must-do series of workshops, discussions, video screenings and educational projects prove once again Dance Umbrella's unerring knack of putting London at the crossroads of international dance.

Phone the Dance Umbrella enquiry line for a free brochure containing all the festival details.

Dance Umbrella enquiry line: 0181 741 5881

PRESS CONTACT:

Faith Wilson/Jo Cole Faith Wilson Arts Publicity

Tel. 0171 250 3600 Fax. 0171 250 3288

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