Dance premiere comes to the Playhouse

A programme of diverse dance works including a world premiere comes to the Playhouse for two nights only next month, when members of the Phoenix Dance Theatre bring their show Declarations to the Liverpool stage on September 15 & 16. Declarations will feature four works including The Audacious One, based on Barack Obama’s landmark speech The Audacity of Hope, performed to selected movements from Mozart’s Requiem. The repertoire also includes two premières from Aletta Collins and Isira Makuloluwe, alongside a company première from South Africa’s Warren Adams and a rare revival of Philip Taylor’s powerful Haunted Passages, first performed by Phoenix in 1989. Maybe Yes Maybe, Maybe No Maybe is created for five dancers around a live, hanging microphone, integrating the dancers' movement and voices with a score transforming the dancers’ voices into the beats and accents of a pulsing soundtrack. Isira Makuloluwe’s Locked In Vertical is the first work by the Sri Lankan-born to debut in the UK. Famed for his inventive, stylish choreography, it sees four dancers perform to an abstract score by composer François Caffenne. Finally, set to Benjamin Britten’s atmospheric Lachrymae, Phillip Taylor’s Haunted Passages is a classic from the company's repertoire, and draws its inspiration from the obsessive, random thoughts which haunt us all when seeking sleep. The six company members of Phoenix Dance Theatre are Azzurra Ardovini, Chihiro Kawasaki, Amanda Lewis, Phil Sanger, Ryu Suzuki and Josh Wille. They will be accompanied on stage in Warren Adams’ The Audacious One by guest artist Paul Liburd, a recent recipient of a Critics' Circle National Dance Award, and Dancing Times Award for best male dancer. Watch the trailer for the show at the Everyman & Playhouse site or below:[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UA-5IDE_E7c?wmode=transparent] Thanks to Chris Nash for the photograph.