Ireland marks a century of independence the ghosts of our history linger. Ireland is ever more concerned with development and progress, and this progress is ever more defined as built infrastructure. While the pandemic upended common expectations around where we work, live and interact, how the land is used retains its almost gravitational significance.
What right do we have to the land beneath our feet?
What would we do to keep it?
Parochialism, fear of the outsider and a deeply set desire to own, wander like shadows around a society grappling with modern questions of population, housing equality, opportunity and national identity. Inspired by the John B Keane’s seminal work The Field, Scorched Earth imagines a detective reopening a cold case, an unsolved crime twelve years after the fact. As stories are revisited and old wounds are opened The Detective and Suspect fall into a world of memory, fantasy, guilt and resentment.
February 6th – 7th, 2025 VIERNULVIER, Ghent March 7th, 2025 Festspielhaus St. Pölten, St. Pölten April 24th – 25th, 2025 Lieu Unique, Nantes May 9th – 10th, 2025 Sadler’s Wells, London May 14th – 17th, 2025 Dublin Dance Festival, Dublin June 24th – 27th, 2025 Théâtre de la Ville, Paris August 13th – 16th, 2025 Kampnagel, Hamburg 60 minutes
Part fiction, part biographical, all elements are overlapping, and it will become difficult to determine what’s myth and what’s reality.
It goes back to a time when families worked in the abattoirs of Belfast. Pigs in the garden of New lodge.
There’s something in the meat of me, bloodline, there is a pink fleshy vulnerability to me, to dancing, there is a violence in me.
This new show will follow the story of Oona’s Great Great Grandfather Specky Clark and his arrival in Belfast.
For this piece which will be unfolding in a series of theatrical images, Oona Doherty will collaborate with many faithful and new partners. The production features music from Irish band Lankum, Gavino Murgia and David Holmes & Raven Violet. Maxime Jerry Fraisse is sound designer, Irish playwright Enda Walsh is dramaturg, Sabine Dargent is set designer, Darius Dolatyari-Dolatdoust is costume designer and long-time collaborator John Gunning is lighting designer. The piece will be performed by an international cast of 9 dancers.
December 2nd, 2024 – January 26th, 2025 Sadler’s Wells, London February 6th – 15th, 2025 Birmingham Hippodrome, Birmingham February 18th – 22nd, 2025 Theatre Royal, Nottingham February 25th – March 1st, 2025 Liverpool Empire, Liverpool May 20th – 24th, 2025 Dublin Dance Festival, Dublin June 18th – 29th, 2025 LG Arts Center, Seoul August 27th – 31st, 2025 Shanghai Culture Square, Shanghai October 9th – 26th, 2025 La Seine Musicale, Boulogne-Billancourt October 29th – November 9th, 2025 Koninklijk Theater Carré, Amsterdam November 19th – 22nd, 2025 Teatro Real, Madrid November 27th – 30th, 2025 Grand Théâtre de la Ville de Luxembourg, Luxembourg 2 hours 20 minutes incl. one 20-minute interval
The 30th Anniversary of Bourne’s Genre-defining Work
Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake returns for its 30th anniversary with a 2024/25 UK tour. This audacious reinvention of Tchaikovsky’s masterpiece caused a sensation when it premiered almost 30 years ago and has since become the most successful dance theatre production of all time. In celebration of that ongoing impact, Swan Lake will take flight once more in this major revival for the next generation, visiting 19 venues over 29 weeks.
Thrilling, bold, witty and emotive, this genre-defining event is still best known for replacing the female corps-de-ballet with a menacing male ensemble, which shattered convention, turning tradition on its head.
First staged at Sadler’s Wells in London in 1995, Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake took the dance theatre world by storm becoming the longest running full-length dance classic in the West End and on Broadway. It has since been performed across the globe, collecting over thirty international accolades including the Olivier Award for Best New Dance Production and three Tony Awards for Best Director of a Musical, Best Choreography and Best Costume Design.
Matthew Bourne said, “As our swans take flight once more in this major revival, I’m full of anticipation for the challenges it will bring for our next generation of dancers and the wonder that it will bring to audiences who will experience it for the very first time.”
