Innovative Multi-installation Dance Show NO BODY To Premiere At Sadler's Wells In June

In an unprecedented exploration of lighting, sound and projection, Sadler's Wells presents the world premiere of NO BODY on June 7-12. Turning the theatre's building inside out, this multisensory installation experience brings together the essential elements of dance performance, but without the physical presence of dancers. The evening features specially commissioned works by the leading composers, lighting designers, filmmakers and other artists who bring dance to life.

This major new Sadler's Wells production takes audiences on a journey of discovery to explore the theatre like never before, leading them around various areas of the building, from the stage, through backstage passages and corridors, to wardrobe rooms, sound boxes and underground pits. Each area is uniquely designed for audiences to experience the different elements of the production.

To begin, lighting designer and Sadler's Wells Associate Artist Michael Hulls invites the audience onto the main Sadler's Wells stage to experience LightSpace, an immersive light and sound installation involving over 1,000 light sources, a 32-speaker sound system and powerful video projections. The work creates a dynamic sensory experience for the eyes and ears. The sound installation is created by the composers Andy Cowton and Mukul with whom Hulls has worked over many years. The video projections are created by animator and video artist Jan Urbanowski with whom Hulls collaborated on Russell Maliphant's acclaimed AfterLight.

Next is Indelible, a music, sound and animation trail by composer and Sadler's Wells Associate Artist Nitin Sawhney that allows the audience to explore the historical essence of the Sadler's Wells building. Individual headsets playing Sawhney's specially commissioned recordings and compositions are worn whilst moving around the theatre's front-of house and backstage spaces. The piece is created in collaboration with Yeast Culture's Nick Hillel, whose visual projection installations create a sense of the many artists and audiences who have passed through the theatre.

Following this is Siobhan Davies and David Hinton's The Running Tongue, a film installation made in collaboration with sound artists, animators, and 22 dance artists, and screened for audiences in a Sadler's Wells rehearsal studio. The film's starting point is a continuous loop of a woman running in London. The footage is paused at random intervals to reveal selected frames treated by each of the artists, unveiling a scene embedded in reality with fleeting moments of strange, surreal and visually poetic activity. Edited live in real time, the film plays continuously but never in the same configuration.

Lighting designer Lucy Carter's intimate installations create theatrical drama in hidden backstage worlds, popping up in unusual spaces in the depths of the Sadler's Wells building. Made in collaboration with composer Jules Maxwell, the installations manipulate the environments of the stage door, wardrobe department, lighting and sound boxes and space beneath the stage. Carter and Maxwell shine a light on the everyday and usually unseen spaces of designers, technicians and backstage teams, employing the technologies of their craft to unfold their stories and chart the emotional journeys of their working practises.

Finally, Sadler's Wells Associate Artist Russell Maliphant presents a triptych film installation in the Lilian Baylis Studio, using previously unseen footage captured during the making of the 2013 short film Erebus to create a new visual experience. Made in collaboration with directors Warren Du Preez and Nick Thornton Jones, Erebus was a response to Maliphant's full-length work The Rodin Project, capturing material of the choreography performed by Maliphant's company. This new project explores more extensively the impact and the different perspectives that film footage can bring to movement presentation.

Sadler's Wells Artistic Director and Chief Executive Alistair Spalding said: "Dance encompasses much more than just moving bodies. There is a remarkable landscape of lighting, sound and visual artists whose work aligns with the vision of the choreographer and the execution of the dancer to bring dance to life in the eyes of the audience. This new production of ours is a celebration of these artists.

"Audiences today want to be challenged and to experience performance in different ways. This transformation of our space is like nothing we have ever done previously - audiences will move around areas of our building they have never seen before and be provoked to re-interrogate what dance performance really is."

Find more information and book tickets at www.sadlerswells.com

Photo credit: Nick Hillel