This event finished on: 20 October 2010
A short work from Freddie Opoku-Addaie is performed prior to the London debut from Algerian/French choreographer Nacera Belaza.
Freddie Opoku-Addaie makes his Dance Umbrella debut with Mis-thread, a work which engages the audience through bold vision and visceral emotion. In a search to unlock the secrets of non-verbal communication, Mis-thread uses elements of folk and ritualistic forms, games, sign language, and energetic, often jagged dance. This fresh and unpredictable dance making is set to a live electric cello score and creates a mysterious environment which changes with each performance.
Freddie Opoku-Addaie is an Associate Artist of the Royal Opera House (2009–2011). Mis-thread is the 2009 Robin Howard Foundation Commission.
Nacera Belaza brings her unique approach and choreography to London for the first time with this rigorous yet mesmerising duet. With an intensity of focus, Belaza and her sister Dalila, build up a trance-like, at times transcendent, experience through repetition and variation. Le Cri is accompanied by evocative film elements and a powerful score, ranging from Arabic chanting and disco beats to the inimitable vocals of Maria Callas. Le Cri creates a space simultaneously brimming with tension and emptiness.
"A raw sensory landscape in which hollowness and volume co-exist with scientific precision….Belaza has revealed nothing and everything in a captivating swoop." NY Times
Photo: Laurent Philippe