This is a new page dedicated to let you all know of any cool up and coming dance events and shows around London. It’s a good way to find out about something different and interesting that we, the Committee would recommend to go see, visit or participate in - ENJOY

Feel free to message us if you want to add an event to this page or to give feedback to any of the things we list here

• TAP
   
  London Tap Jam:

  The London Tap Jam takes place on the 4th Sunday of every month at Ronnie Scott’s in Soho. Tap dancer Annette Walker will host the Renegade Stage at 7:15 for dancers new to improvisation. At 8:00, dancers of all levels are invited to take to the stage. Live music provided by the Dave Silk Trio; £6 without tap shoes and £5 with. The Jam is a great opportunity to see some fantastic tap dancers in action or to get up and give it a go! All dancers from the KCL Dance Society Int/Adv Tap Class are encouraged to attend.

  Dates: 22nd Nov, 20th Dec, 24th Jan Tickets: £6 entrance or £5 for musicans/dancers Location: Ronnie’s Bar, 47 Frith Street, London

• HIP HOP
   
   
  The Barbican
   
  The Barbican Centre is the largest multi-arts centre in Europe, featuring art, film, music, theatre, dance and education all under one roof and under one creative direction

   
  What’s On:

   
  - Pied Piper:

  Get ready for this adrenalin fuelled explosion, combining original street dance choreography with a bold urban soundtrack. Pied Piper is a contemporary performance inspired by Robert Browning’s poem The Pied Piper of Hamelin. It is an innovative, original and thrilling fusion of dance and narrative, taking an edgy look at morality. Boy Blue Entertainment’s electrifying mix of synchronized hip-hop moves, energetic breakdancing and soulful beats, take the audience to the heart of the city streets

  Tickets vary from £10-£26 Click here to book tickets

   
  
   
  Southbank Center
   
  Southbank Centre’s wide-ranging programme: classical & world music, rock & pop, jazz, dance, literature and the visual arts - attracts the most diverse audience of any UK venue.
   
  Southbank Centre consists of the Royal Festival Hall (reopened after its two-year transformation), the Hayward Gallery, Queen Elizabeth Hall (containing the Purcell Room), and the Saison Poetry Library. We also manage the Arts Council Collection and organises the National Touring Exhibition programme in venues throughout the UK.
   
  Situated on the south bank of the River Thames next to the popular BA London Eye, Southbank Centre is at the heart of an arts quarter stretching from the Royal National Theatre and National Film Theatre to Tate Modern and Shakespeare’s Globe.

   
  What’s On:

   
  - Into The Hoods:

  Into the Hoods features groovy tunes and wicked dance moves and includes music from Massive Attack, Kanye West and others.   The show is created and performed by critically acclaimed dance company ZooNation, whose dancers performed at the closing ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympics and Nelson Mandela’s 90th birthday, and competed in the final of Britain’s Got Talent 2009.   Join two runaway kids on their adventures at the ominous Ruff Endz estate. Meet aspiring singer Lil Red under contract to greedy producer Wolf, and Prince who is two-timing rapper Rap-on-Zel and DJ and gold trainer-wearing Spinderella.

  Weds 16 Dec ‘09 - Sun 10 Jan ‘10 Prices: £27.50 £25 £22.50 £20 £15 Booking Fee: £1.45 (Members £0.00)

• BALLET
  
   
  English National Ballet:
   
  The English National Ballet is one of the world’s great ballet companies. The original 1950s vision for the Company - to take classical ballet of the highest quality to the widest geographical audience, at a price everyone can afford - remains the cornerstone of the Company’s philosophy today.

   
  What’s On:

   
  - The Nutcracker:

  The Nutcracker tells the story of Clara, her Nutcracker doll and the magician Drosselmeyer, and their amazing adventures in the Land of Snow and the Kingdom of the Sweets. It is a spellbinding experience; Clara battles with a Mouse King, dances with snowflakes and falls in love with a handsome Prince.

  Dates: 16 Dec - 3 Jan Tickets: £60, £50, £40, £30, £20, £15, £10 Click here for Performance Times Click here for How To Book

  - The Snow Queen:
  Dates: 16 Dec - 3 Jan Tickets: £60, £50, £40, £30, £20, £15, £10 Click here for Performance Times Click here for How To Book	Hans Christian Andersen’s famous wintry fairy tale tells of Gerda’s quest to find her friend Kay who has been put under the Snow Queen’s evil spell. Her fantastic journey takes her to the Snow Queen’s Palace inhabited by her magical court of wolves, white foxes and sprites. Only Gerda’s love for Kay can release him from the spell and break the Snow Queen’s curse of eternal winter.

  - Giselle:
  Giselle is the ultimate Romantic ballet, a tale of innocence, betrayal and the redemptive power of true love. English National Ballet’s traditional staging of this 1841 masterpiece moves from the sunny optimism of Giselle’s idyllic village life to a ghostly, moonlit world of mystery and menace.	Weds 20 Jan 7.30pm Thurs 21 Jan 7.30pm Fri 22 Jan 7.30pm Sat 23 Jan 2.30pm and 7.30pm Tickets: £60, £50, £40, £30, £20, £15, £10 Click here for Performance Times Click here for How To Book

   
  Saddlers Wells
   
  Sadler’s Wells is a theatre with a strong, dynamic contemporary programme, uniquely dedicated to bringing the very best international and UK dance to London audiences. The present building on Rosebery Avenue in Islington opened in 1998, after a major fundraising programme, supported by Lottery funding.
   
  From cutting-edge performance to mainstream contemporary dance, tango to tap and flamenco to family shows, the joy of movement and celebration of dance are always at the heart of Sadler’s Wells.

   
  What’s On:

   
  - Birmingham Royal Ballet with Quantum Leaps / Cyrano

  Quantum Leaps features Stanton Welch’s uplifting Powder, danced to Mozart’s popular clarinet concerto. Fluid and sensual, this piece is a brilliant celebration of nostalgia, beauty and joy. The Centre and its Opposite is a new work from contemporary choreographer Garry Stewart, Artistic Director of Australian Dance Theatre, set to a powerful electronic soundscape. Birmingham Royal Ballet Director David Bintley’s E=mc² has a specially commissioned score by Matthew Hindson, and explores Einstein’s ‘Special Theory of Relativity’ in music and dance of breathtaking energy and speed.   Cyrano is a hilarious and heartbreaking story of one man’s truly self-sacrificing devotion, choreographed by David Bintley with music by Carl Davis. The beautiful Lady Roxane is in love with the dashing cadet Christian de Neuvillette, and so enlists her cousin, the poet and soldier Cyrano de Bergerac to deliver her intended a love letter. Cyrano is an extraordinary man, blessed with a big heart, a big mind… but an even bigger nose.

  Quantum Leaps Powder / E=mc² / The Centre and its Opposite Tue 10 & Wed 11 at 7.30pm Wed Mat at 2pm   Cyrano Thu 12 - Sat 14 at 7.30pm Sat Mat at 2.30pm Tickets: £10 - £40

   

  - Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake:

  Now firmly crowned as a modern-day classic, this iconic production is perhaps best-known for replacing the traditional female corps de ballet with a menacing male ensemble. Matthew Bourne blends dance, humour and spectacle with extravagant, award-winning designs by Lez Brotherston, to create a provocative and powerful Swan Lake for our times.   Collecting over 30 international theatre awards including three Tonys, Swan Lake has been acclaimed as a landmark achievement on the international stage. It has become the longest running ballet in the West End and on Broadway and enjoyed four hugely successful tours in the UK and thrilled audiences all over the world.

  Tue - Sun at 7.30pm (excluding Thu 24, Fri 25 & Thu 31 Dec) Sat & Sun Mats at 2.30pm (excluding Sat 26 Dec) Tue 22, Wed 23, Thu 24, Wed 30, Thu 31 Dec at 2.30pm Thu 17 Dec & Wed 6 Jan at 2pm Tickets: £10 - £50

   
  Royal Opera House
   
  The magnificent Royal Opera House has a fascinating history and is actually the third theatre built on the Covent Garden site. Both the previous theatres were destroyed by fire, a serious hazard in the era before electricity.
   
  ROH Collections celebrates the history of the Royal Opera House with a constantly changing programme of exhibitions commemorating anniversaries and significant events as well as the companies and the building itself. Originial historical material is displayed for free to the wider public in the ROH costume cases and the Amphitheatre Gallery. Explore our colourful history and find out about opportunities to see first-hand some of our exquisite collections.

   
  What’s On:

   
  - The Sleeping Beauty
  A wicked fairy curses a baby princess who falls asleep for a hundred years. True love’s kiss wakes her to the endless dance of an enchanted world.
   
  This is one of Tchaikovsky’s finest compositions and a gem of Imperial Russian ballet preserved through generations of dancers from its original 1890 staging in St Petersburg.
   
  The ballet’s palatial setting recalls the grandeur of a bygone aristocratic world, of courtiers, complicated courtship and elegant aesthetics. The well-known story is perfectly expressed through dance: from the princess’s hesitant first steps at her coming-out ball, to her triumphant 32 fouettés at its close.
   
  The fantastical world of fairy tale comes ever more alive in the final act as an array of fictional characters takes the stage: Puss-in-Boots, Red Riding Hood, the Bluebird, Beauty and the Beast.
   
  - Mayerling
  Kenneth MacMillan’s psychologically wrought portrayal of Vienna’s decadent future king, a drug-addicted wastrel whose suicide in the Mayerling hunting lodge shocked the nation.
   
  This true story of the mysterious murder-suicide of Crown Prince Rudolf, heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and his teenage mistress was somewhat in vogue when Kenneth MacMillan created this ballet in the 1970s. There had been a 1968 film starring heartthrob actor Omar Sharif as Rudolf and several other popular romanticisations of the tragic story.
   
  MacMillan was attracted by its themes of lust and brutality and set his choreography to Liszt’s brooding music full of nervous undercurrents. His take on the handsome prince is stark: Rudolf’s unhappy marriage, dysfunctional family, drug and sex addictions and sadistic fetish for guns play out against a backdrop of social duty and formal manners. Rudolf, our anti-hero, must conform or die.
   
  - Les Patineurs / Tales of Beatrix Potter:
  A menagerie of eccentric English creatures take the stage.
   
  Frederick Ashton created this delightful ballet for a 1971 children’s film in which he danced Mrs Tiggy-Winkle. The music evokes a forgotten England: full of bygone folk tunes and Victorian and Edwardian melodies.
   
  There is pathos, as Pigling Bland bids farewell to his mother, romance, when he dances a pas de deux with a pretty Berkshire Black (delightfully feminine despite her large snout), feats of athletic vigour from Jeremy Fisher, the frog, and terror, as a foxy gentleman stalks a dim-witted Jemima Puddle Duck.
   
  Things are kept from being too sugary by Ashton’s gift for wit, parody and self-depreciation. The work is as much a celebration of English eccentricity, humour and ingenuity as it is a story for children.
   
  - Romeo and Juliet
  Kenneth MacMillan’s dark take on young love.
   
  Prokofiev’s score for Romeo and Juliet was completed in 1936 and performed with choreography by a fellow Russian, Ivo Váña-Psota. Kenneth MacMillan asked to choreograph it in 1962 for Covent Garden, producing one of his most famous and acclaimed works - now considered the definitive version of the ballet.
   
  MacMillan’s use of naturalistic acting and gesture was an innovation at the time: the explicit expression of adolescent passion between the two young lovers, for example, or the way Romeo dances with Juliet’s lifeless body in the tomb scene.

• CONTEMPORARY
  
   
  Dance Umbrella Festival 2009
   
  Dance Umbrella is one of the world’s most exciting programmers of new dance. They thrive on the dynamism and openness of London and bring together artists and events which surprise and thrill audiences of all kinds. Each year they stage one of the world’s leading international dance festivals.
   
  Dance Umbrella is responsible for the explosion of interest in contemporary dance in the UK, increasing public awareness of the artform and inspiring artistic excellence.
   
  Recognised as one of Europe’s most adventurous dance promoters, Dance Umbrella is dedicated to the development of choreography, choreographers and dancers and their audiences.

   
  What’s On:

   
  - Shobana Jeyasingh Dance Company (UK) with Bruise Blood & Faultline:

  Shobana Jeyasingh returns to Dance Umbrella with a bold and stylish double-bill featuring the world premiere of Bruise Blood. This new work features beat box artist Shlomo in an original interpretation of Steve Reich’s Come Out, developed in collaboration with composer Glyn Perrin.   Weds 21 & Thu 22 Oct, 7.45pm Tickets: £12 - £25 (concs 50% off - limited availability)

   
  - Mark Morris Dance Group (USA):

  Acclaimed throughout the world, Mark Morris celebrates 25 years as a Dance Umbrella favourite with two programmes showcasing brand new works alongside classics from the company’s repertoire. His choreography is driven by his response to music, here ranging from the abundant lyricism of Schubert to the ecclecticism of Charles Ives and the catchiness of American Western swing.   Programme One: Tue 27, Thu 29 & Sat 31 Oct, 7.30pm Programme Two: Weds 28 & Fri 30 Oct, 7.30pm Tickets: £10 - £35

STAY TUNED, MORE TO FOLLOW….