Award-winning Metta Theatre have announced a brand new show and national tour for 2016. Acclaimed street dance choreographer Kendra J Horsburgh is working with Artistic Directors Poppy Burton-Morgan and William Reynolds on a new version of JUNGLE BOOK using streetdance, skateboarding, circus and spoken word.
Poppy Burton-Morgan's radical re-imagining of Kipling's much loved, albeit problematically colonialist, classic sees JUNGLE BOOK transposed to a contemporary urban jungle of skateboarding Wolves, street dancing Monkeys, a beat-boxing bin man Baloo and graffiti artist Bagheera. Kipling for the 21st century - this production will simultaneously astonish with its physical virtuosity and challenge with its politics. Metta Theatre are known for their powerful visual storytelling and exploration of multi-cultural stories often from a female perspective. Here we follow Mowgli on her search for identity and belonging - vulnerable, isolated and trying to find her place in an alien environment - the story transcends boundaries - resonating with audiences young and old, urban and rural. With a beat-driven score by sound artist Filipe Gomes created from real world sounds of the city alongside designer William Reynolds' trademark minimalism, an urban jungle is created - a stark forest of streetlamps disguising circus equipment - on which these recognisably human animals cavort and contort themselves. Using street dance and circus to explore the search for identity and belonging in contemporary multi-cultural Britain, a diverse cast of the UK's leading dancers and circus performers are joined by a community chorus drawn from excluded and vulnerable groups, local to each venue.Videos