Highlights

Highlights of Dancing Nation, a celebration of world-class dance featuring performances by many of the UK’s leading dance companies and exciting new talent.

As part of BBC Arts’ Culture in Quarantine, Dancing Nation was a unique festival curated and hosted in lockdown by Sadler’s Wells, London – one of the world’s foremost dance houses.

Brenda Emmanus presents highlights from the festival, including many newly filmed performances. The performances from the theatre’s main stage include Matthew Bourne’s New Adventures’ seminal 1988 work Spitfire, Candoco Dance Company’s ode to intimacy and imagination, choreographed by Yasmeen Godder, dance royalty Akram Khan and Natalia Osipova, together for the first time in Mud of Sorrow: Touch, and Far From The Norm’s award-winning BLKDOG, choreographed by Botis Seva.

Window Shopping, a brand new work from hip-hop dance powerhouse Breakin’ Convention, led by their artistic director Jonzi D, and Sphera, by breakthrough dance company Humanhood, both break away from the main stage and feature Sadler’s Wells’s architecture, while the streets of Belfast play host to choreographer Oona Doherty’s Hope Hunt and the Ascension into Lazarus.

The events of the past year feature in performances from dance companies around the UK. Choreographer Kenneth Tindall and Northern Ballet bring us a poignant new work, States of Mind, Birmingham Royal Ballet perform Lazuli Sky, choreographed by Will Tuckett, and Covid-19 and the Black Lives Matter movement take centre stage in Anthony and Kel Matsena’s searing Shades of Blue.

Also included are extracts from existing filmed performances by hip-hop pioneers Boy Blue and an explosive debut collaboration by world-renowned Rambert and French choreographer Marion Motin.