Resolution, The Place’s annual festival for new choreography, returns in 2024 to kick off the year with a bang.
This is the first year since the pandemic that Resolution festival returns to its usual programming slot in January.
Taking ‘Place’ across 18 nights from Wed 17 January to Fri 9 February 2024, Resolution is the UK’s biggest festival for dance, bringing together the hottest works by artists spanning different disciplines. Resolution 2024 features a stellar line-up of artists showcasing new work.
Here at DAJ, we follow each year and are always excited to see such incredible artists take to the stage and showcase their work. We also think it’s important to shout about and celebrate artists at all stages of their dance careers.
We’ve put together a list of the shows that are happening over the course of this festival, so check them out below!
SKUMO by Orla Hardie
SKUMO by Orla Hardie is one of the three performances kicking off Resolution 24 on 17 January. This duet explores ‘The Uncanny’, looking at the incongruous balance of dark despair and comedic undertones that can sit side by side.
Visit here to book.
Too Much, Too Many, All the Time by Alice Ortona Coles confronts feelings of overwhelm in our complex, fast-paced, politically-fraught world. Creating an imaginary world, Alice seeks refuge in her imagination, dreaming up alternative existences through spoken word, costume, dance and song, exploring the intersection between our rich, internal worlds and lived realities.
Visit here to book.
Sweet England by Sylvie Holder
Choreographer Sylvie Holder’s work Sweet England warps and wefts the undocumented realities of peasant life in the Middle Ages.
Sylvie is one of a whole cohort of Northern School of Contemporary Dance MA graduates showcasing work at Resolution 2024. Sylvie is joined by Hattie Musgrove – performing a solo Aria – and Araminta Wraith – performing We’ve Had Such a Lovely Time – on Friday 19th January, with Jorden Brooks and Jack Trotter sharing work the evening before. This group of graduates is definitely one to watch out for and keep on your radar.
For more information and to book, visit here.
H A y w I R e by In Between Collective
On 20th January Lydia Ayllón and Sara Canabal of In Between Collective perform their work H A y w I R e, an exploration of hair and its relation to the idea of self-expression. This piece will look at the role external influences have on how we see and value ourselves, using hair as the main vehicle to articulate this.
Both Ayllón and Canabal are flamenco dancers which explains In Between Collective’s grounding in flamenco and contemporary dance forms. With flamenco a dance style very much informed by traditional codes and featuring a particular aesthetic, it will be interesting to see what happens when the two forms and subject matter are all brought together.
Visit here to book and find out more about the artists.
Manon Servage’s Spectrum also comes to Resolution on 20 January. Spectrum questions the labels put upon people from different communities as a way of controlling who they are. But, what if life was a Spectrum or a continuum? We interviewed Manon last summer and are really looking forward to seeing Spectrum at Resolution.
Book here.
Dear Adult by Wency Lam
Choreographer Wency Lam returns to Resolution 2024 on 24 January with Dear Adult, a dance theatre piece that’s introduced as fun for kids and thought-provoking for adults.
Lam devised Dear Adult alongside fellow performers Maggie Chan Tin Lok and Eden Rae Nathenson and the three dove into their own childhood memories to find a story the audience connects with. Jonathan Yang and Michael Tang have designed the sound, with dramaturgical support from Tenzin Choezin and movement direction support from Hsinyu Wu.
On the same evening Joshua Yates presents Yonder, which is based on a story he’s written. It features a non-binary character who uproots their previous life and creates a new identity
elsewhere, only for their sibling to appear years later persuading them to return to their hometown.
Visit here to book.
33 RPM by Chiara Martina Halter
Combining set design, contemporary movement language, and opera, 33 RPM by Chiara Martina Halter is a response to the ongoing growth in socio-economic segregation. Coming to The Place on 25 January, it embraces the evolution of cultural heritage and acknowledges the traces left by those who cross our path.
Visit here to book.
Panopticon by Tarantism (Vasiliki Papapostolou)
In the eighteenth century, Jeremy Bentham invented an architectural structure for social control, a prison called Panopticon in which the cells are always visible. Foucault suggested that this Panopticon idea is how everyday life functions in modern societies since this external gaze becomes internalised, inducing individuals to surveil themselves.
In the piece Panopticon, choreographer/performer Tarantism (Vasiliki Papapostolou) together with composer/sound designer Christopher Nas and lighting designer Emma Gasson use this vital piece of history as a base for their work.
Visit here to book this Resolution performance on 26 January.
DAJ writer Sunhi Keller showcases her work 9 Tales of a Bitch on 26th January too.
Based on the story of Kumiho, the shapeshifting fox woman who lures men in with her beauty then uses her power to eat their hearts, 9 Tales of a Bitch is a transformative work that breaks the boundaries and typecasts that restrict Asian women.
Visit here to book.
On The Other Side by Yee Kei Yuki Chung
On 30th January Yee Kei Yuki Chung priests presents On The Other Side which explores the emotional impact on people who have experienced the death of others, imaginary death, and the imaginary contact between the dead and the living.
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Aimee Ruhinda, Emma Skyum and Lizzy Tan
Aimee Ruhinda premieres her piece A Good Scare is a Wonderful Aphrodisiac on 31st January 2024, a gothic occult trip mixing earth and blood, poetry and pornography. Fantasy realms interact with human reality too…
On the same night, Emma Skyum presents LEUCA, a reflective and introspective choreographic work about queer discovery.
Lizzy Tan ends the evening with her new work Revolver, a piece asking the ‘of-our-time’ question: What is new work in the era of social media ‘templates,’ endless cloud storage and meme-ory? Lizzy will work in collaboration with Carly Lave and Frieda Luk.
Visit here to book.
Caroline Felkins’ Chaconne
Bach’s masterful Chaconne was written in a time of grief, and, on 1st February at Resolution, is experienced here through sound and movement.
Visit here to book.
Paulina Krzeczkowska’s piece, Woman in the Attic, also comes to Resolution on 1st February. inspired by the romantic tropes of the mad woman, Woman in the Attic explores gender and the place of femininity in the social and literary contexts.
Visit here to book.
The Chair by Terry Smith
In Terry Smith‘s The Chair – created with Paola Piccato and Lise Boucon – the stage is a vast expanse of emptiness, save for a solitary chair placed at the centre. A single spotlight hovers above, casting a focused beam on the chair. The area outside the spotlight is in complete darkness and it is from here that a voice addresses the chair or the audience or themselves, there is an ambiguity. Eventually the performer appears and what follows is part theatre, part dance, part performance art.
Visit here to book this performance on 2 February.
Fabio Pronesti’s Souvenir
Fabio Pronesti returns to Resolution festival with Souvenir, a solo performance which reconsiders what we kept close. Within the landscape crafted in collaboration with sound engineer Beatrice Balagna, Fabio brings to light lived spaces, currents in which he immersed himself and some precious relics: other beliefs that were real. It’s brilliant to see Fabio at Resolution again; he has danced with some very well-known international choreographers and we’re eager to see how he continues to develop his practice as a maker.
Visit here to book.
Poem of Rua by Matthew Howard
Blurring of cultural boundaries and identity seems to be a key theme of this year’s Resolution. Howard’s Poem of Rua comes to The Place on 6 February. Rua is a visual representation of how two cultural movement identities can blend and become one, moving in harmony yet retaining their form.
Visit here to book.
Abandhana by Divya Ravi
Bharatanatyam performing artiste, choreographer and educator Divya Ravi presents her work Abandhana on 6th February.
Abandhana (Pali – ‘Unfettered’) is a dance-theatre-musical immersion into the heart-breaking honesty, beauty and depth of Therigatha (Songs of Theri-s), which was the earliest known anthology of women’s literature.
Bharatanatyam movement vocabulary and a visceral soundscape are used to draw parallels between the unapologetic choice of the Theri-s to ‘renounce’, and the nuanced choice of contemporary women to ‘renegotiate’ all that impedes them.
Visit here to book.
I am. Am I by Louiseanne Pui Chi Wong
I Am. Am I (me, my fridge and I) is a work in progress – a human story told through movement, dance, and circus. Louiseanne Wong explores their struggle with social norms, displacement, and unlearning how they were ‘conditioned’ in Hong Kong. They question labelling theory – some given, some self-identifying (e.g. from-from, foreigner) – and raise awareness of social inequalities using a fridge and urban anti-establishment forms like krump. Supported by The Lowry Artist Development, with initial work-in-progress sharing at The Lowry’s Scratch Nights X Circus April 2023.
Visit here to book this show on 8 February.
Magnetoreception by Odyl Creations
On 9 February, Sarah and Philip of Odyl Creations perform Magnetoreception, an electrifying journey through the pulsating rhythms of human connections. Think of this as a dance of passion and pain, a symphony of souls drawn together and pulled apart, all narrated by the mesmerising choreography of magnets in motion.
Visit here to book.