Barbican Theatre and Dance Programme January to June 2019 Announced

The Barbican today announces its full January to June 2019 Theatre and Dance programme. Tickets for the season go on sale to Barbican Members Plus on Wednesday 17 October, to Barbican Members on Friday 19 October and on general sale on Friday 26 October 2018.

Toni Racklin, Head of Theatre, said:

"We are proud to announce today our complete January to June 2019 Theatre and Dance season. As we enter the 21styear of our international Theatre and Dance programme we welcome a stunning array of directors, choreographers, writers, composers, film-makers and visual artists to our three stages - the Theatre, The Pit and Silk Street Theatre. Artists and companies hail from Ireland, France, The Netherlands, Australia, the USA, Spain, the UK, South Africa, Italy, Burkina Faso, Belgium and Russia. The subjects of families, parenthood and ageing are recurrent themes through the work as the domestic breaks out into the public domain. Elsewhere we see how historical events continue to resonate in our unsettled times. During this period of change, the Barbican continues to be truly international in its outlook by crossing borders and continents to bring our audiences arts without boundaries."

Cillian Murphy stars in Enda Walsh's theatrical adaptation of Max Porter's multi-award winning novel Grief is the Thing with Feathers, which makes its UK premiere in the Barbican Theatre. This deeply moving meditation on love, loss and living is produced by Wayward Productions in association with Complicité and co-produced by the Barbican.

Also from Irish playwright and director Enda Walsh is an immersive theatre installation - five meticulously detailed rooms housing clues to the characters once confined within their walls. Narrated by a number of Ireland's finest actors, this is the first time that all five rooms can be seen together. Rooms is produced by Galway International Arts Festival and this UK premiere is presented in Silk Street Theatre.

We bring the world-renowned Comédie-Française to the Barbican Theatre, their first appearance in the UK for nearly twenty years. Ivo van Hove, with whom we have a long-standing relationship, directs this stage adaptation of film-maker Luchino Visconti's screenplay The Damned (Les Damnés) in this UK premiere in the Barbican Theatre. Performed in French, this intense spectacle about a corrupt family of industrialists who collude with the Nazis, finds unsettling parallels in today's world.

Barbican regulars, Internationaal Theater Amsterdam (formerly known as Toneelgroep Amsterdam) return to the Barbican Theatre, this time with the UK premiere of Medea, adapted and directed by award-winning Australian film and theatre director, writer and actor, Simon Stone. This contemporary retelling ofEuripides' tragedy, performed in Dutch, sees Marieke Heebink (last seen at the Barbican in Persona in 2017) take the lead role, for which she won the Dutch acting award, the Theo d'Or.

As part of the official celebration of the Merce Cunningham Centennial, on the day that the giant of US choreography, Merce Cunningham, would have turned 100, we stage the world premiere and Barbican co-production of Night of 100 Solos, the largest Cunningham Event ever conceived. 75 dancers across three venues - the Barbican Theatre, BAM in New York City and UCLA's Center for the Art of Performance in Los Angeles - perform a unique collection of 100 solos choreographed by Cunningham over the course of his career, with live music and bespoke set design. Nearly half of the performers are former company members, led at the Barbican by Londoner Daniel Squire. To complement the performance in the Theatre, we screen If the Dancer Dances (directed by Maia Wechsler, 2018) in Cinema 2. Thisdocumentary film shows Stephen Petronio Company and former members of Merce Cunningham Dance Company rehearsing Cunningham's RainForest (1968), revealing what it takes to keep a dance alive.

Also from the USA and from Spain, and part of the official celebration of the Merce Cunningham Centennial, we bring the UK premiere and Barbican co-production ofFerran Carvajal and Trevor Carlson's Not a moment too soon to Silk Street Theatre. This solo performance by Carlson, Executive Director to Merce Cunningham, reflects on the years spent as companion and close friend to the choreographer, offering a rare insight into the final days of a master.

As announced on 27 September 2018, as part of the Barbican Centre's 2019 annual season Life Rewired, which explores what it means to be human when technology is changing everything, we present the European premiere of Tesseract. Former Merce Cunningham Dance Company dancers, Rashaun Mitchell and Silas Riener, together with pioneering video artist Charles Atlas - a long term collaborator of Cunningham - choreograph this ambitious exploration of the relationship between the human form and technology. Two distinct acts, the first an astonishing 3D film, the second a live performance captured by multiple onstage cameras, form this European premiere from the USA.

Never-before seen in the UK, US-choreographer Pam Tanowitz comes to the Barbican Theatre with the European premiere and Barbican co-commission of TS Eliot's Four Quartets, the first time that the work has been given a theatrical adaptation authorised by the TS Eliot Estate. Published 75 years ago, Four Quartets is considered the crowning achievement of TS Eliot's career. Tanowitz collaborates with Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho and American visual artist Brice Marden in this ravishing union of dance, music and art as American actor Kathleen Chalfant narrates the dynamic and kinetic language of the four-part poem.

The UK-based Ballet Black, led by Artistic Director Cassa Pancho, return to the Barbican Theatre for the fourth consecutive year following their previous sell-out seasons, this time with two world premieres. The first is a Barbican co-commission, Ingoma (Song), created by company dancer and choreographer Mthuthuzeli November. It portrays a milestone moment in South African history when 60,000 black miners took courageous strike action. The second is another original work, a light-hearted and engaging narrative ballet by Italian choreographer Luca Silvestrini.

We bring Burkina Faso-born choreographer Serge Aimé Coulibaly to the Barbican Theatre for the first time with the UK premiere of Kalakuta Republik - an intoxicating dance piece about modern-day Africa examining the life of Nigeria's activist, musical legend and political maverick, Fela Kuti.

We bring our Artistic Associate, Cheek by Jowl, together with Moscow Pushkin Drama Theatre, led by Artistic Director Evgeny Pisarev, to the Barbican Theatre with the UK premiere and Barbican co-production of Francis Beaumont's subversive comedy The Knight of the Burning Pestle. Director Declan Donnellanand designer Nick Ormerod collaborate with Moscow's eminent Russian theatre company on this outrageous farce, which is performed in Russian.

Also from the Moscow Pushkin Drama Theatre, announced on 10 September 2018, we present a season of three UK premieres in the Barbican Theatre and The Pit. In the Theatre, Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard embodies the spirit of Russia at the turn of the 20th century, and under the direction of Vladimir Mirzoyev, his version conveys societal collapse recognisable in more recent events.

This is followed by The Good Person of Szechwan - a punchy and vigorous modern-dress version of Brecht's parable play with its focus on survival and the duality of human nature. Directed by Yury Butusov, the no-holds-barred performance by Alexandra Ursulyak won her a Golden Mask Theatre Award. Both The Cherry Orchard and The Good Person of Szechwan are performed in Russian and the songs in The Good Person of Szechwan are performed in the original German.

Completing the season is Mother's Field, a potent, non-verbal adaptation of Russian writer, Chingiz Aitmatov's outspoken novella published eighteen years after the Second World War as a plea for peace. Sergei Zemlyansky directs the company of young, skilled artists with boundless choreographic freedom.

London International Mime Festival return with four shows, two in the Barbican Theatre and two in The Pit plus screenings of Buster Keaton's The General (1926) and Victor Sjöström's He Who Gets Slapped (1924), both in Cinema 1. The Olivier award-winning Peeping Tom from Belgium return to the Barbican Theatre for the third time, this time with Father (Vader) directed by Franck Chartier. Part of the company's surreal trilogy about families, it echoes the artists' own reminiscences, mysteries and hopes.

UK-based physical theatre company Gecko make their Barbican Theatre debut as they reprise their earlier hit The Wedding. Performed by a nine-strong ensemble and directed by Amit Lahav, the piece calls into question the union between state and individual.

We bring Le Théâtre de L'Entrouvert from France to The Pit. Featuring a wondrous, luminous ice puppet made anew for each performance, Anywhere is freely adapted from the book Oedipus on the Road by Belgian author Henry Bauchau.

Also from France, Patrick Sims returns to the Barbican with his new company

Les Antliaclastes. Waltz of the Hommelettes is a magical cabinet of curiosities, with hints of Alice in Wonderland and Brothers Grimm, where events are controlled by a giant cuckoo clock, supernatural in its keeping of time.

Father (Vader), Anywhere and Waltz of the Hommelettes are all UK premieres.

Other Life Rewired performances and events are A Family Outing: 20 Years On; I is a strange loop; Avalanche: A Love Story; Fertility Fest and Collisions.

Ursula Martinez returns to The Pit with the world premiere and Barbican co-commission of A Family Outing: 20 Years On. In this wryly honest and frank conversation, a mother and daughter expose their relationship, contrasting past and present in an endearingly ad hoc and uplifting performance. Ursula Martinez also leads a Weekend Lab about making autobiographical theatre.

Marcus du Sautoy and Victoria Gould, the creative research ensemble behind Complicité's sensational A Disappearing Number, perform I is a strange loop, directed by Dermot Keaney. This two-hander is an intriguing take on mortality, consciousness and artificial life.

The world premiere of Avalanche: A Love Story, a stage dramatisation of Australian author Julie Leigh's memoir, Avalanche, is a Barbican Theatre Productions, Fertility Fest and Sydney Theatre Company co-production. Directed by Australian director Anne-Louise Sarks, the story focuses on one woman and her desire to create life.

We present Fertility Fest for the first time in the Barbican Centre across multiple venues. Founded by Jessica Hepburn, influential activist and author of The Pursuit of Motherhood, in partnership with theatre producer Gabby Vautier, Fertility Fest is the only arts festival devoted entirely to the subjects of modern families and the science of making babies. Performances and panel discussions with medical experts, artists and audiences draw on female and male experiences, look at new models of family making and seek to break taboos around IVF.

The immersive, Emmy award-winning virtual reality documentary film Collisions is a startling, real-life account of the moment when indigenous elder Nyarri Nyarri Morgan's world was turned upside down. Amid the endless horizon of the remote Western Australian desert, this is a rare insight into the hidden history of Britain's nuclear testing. Directed by Australian film director Lynette Wallworth, pioneer of interactive digital technologies, it reveals one man's first and fateful encounter with Western science.

London International Mime Festival 2019

Les Antliaclastes - Waltz of the Hommelettes

Tuesday 15-Saturday 19 January 2019, The Pit

In this magical cabinet of curiosities, with hints of Alice in Wonderland and Brothers Grimm, events are controlled by a giant, Black Forest cuckoo clock, supernatural in its keeping of time.

A shoemaker, a mother bird who spins wool and a menacing, musket-toting rabbit are the protagonists in three interwoven tales filled with striking imagery, surprises, twists and turns. When the clock strikes thirteen, elves and goblins appear from its mechanical gears and wheels. They manipulate time and rearrange the notion of natural order so that humans are no longer in charge. Then the fun begins.

Artistic Director Patrick Sims, co-founder of both Buchinger's Boot Marionettes and Les Antliaclastes, uses masked performers, extraordinary music and sound, automatons and sculptural puppets to achieve his fantastical universe. An eerily delightful folklorish adventure, Waltz of the Hommelettes is faithful to the child logic, adult hypocrisy, cruelty and humour of traditional fairytales.

London International Mime Festival 2019

Le Théâtre de L'Entrouvert - Anywhere

Tuesday 22-Saturday 26 January 2019, The Pit

King Oedipus, a marionette made almost entirely of ice, sets out on a redemptive voyage accompanied by his daughter Antigone, their long passage punctuated by poetic visions of water and fire, shadow and light.

Rejected, hurt and alone, the blind king abandons his throne and takes to the road with his guide Antigone - a puppeteer in human form dressed in a protective felt cloak. As they walk across misty landscapes, his metamorphosis is conveyed by his melting physical state until they reach the crossroads of the world and he disappears from sight.

Featuring a wondrous, luminous ice puppet made anew for each performance, Anywhere is freely adapted from the book, Oedipus on the Road, by Belgian author Henry Bauchau. Combining animated elements with ephemeral materials, Le Théâtre de L'Entrouvert have devised a captivating show that contrasts delicacy and strength, silence and sound.

London International Mime Festival 2019

Gecko - The Wedding

Thursday 24-Saturday 26 January 2019, Barbican Theatre

Seducing audiences with intricate choreography, provocative narratives and vivid symbolism, The Wedding brings the union between state and individual into question amid a flurry of white dresses.

From a chute the performers emerge giddy as newborns, expectantly clutching teddy bears. But things soon turn business-like. Doubt, regret and a creeping sense of dislocation enter the physically emotive language of the faultless nine-strong ensemble, their thrillingly tribal and rhythmic finale suggesting revolution and hope.

Led by Artistic Director Amit Lahav, physical theatre company Gecko meld heightened movement with spectacular staging and minimal dialogue to confront big themes.

London International Mime Festival 2019

Peeping Tom - Father (Vader)

Wednesday 30 January-Saturday 2 February 2019, Barbican Theatre

The phenomenal choreography and enigmatic visual imagery of Peeping Tom see fantasy and reality collide in this empathetic and surprising portrait of ageing.

Towering walls surround the visiting room of a care home where an elderly father counts his final days. Shifting scenes speak of isolation, divinity, ridicule and melancholia as his complex identity and lived experiences are revealed. People and objects move around him whilst memories make way for hallucinatory, less lucid moments.

Astonishing dance, song and live music are interwoven in this incisive and compassionate piece. Father, directed by Franck Chartier, is part of the company's surreal trilogy about families, echoing the artists' own reminiscences, mysteries and hopes. Another part of the trilogy, Mother, was critically acclaimed here in January 2018, whilst an earlier show, 32 rue Vandenbranden, presented here in 2015, won an Olivier Award.

Moscow Pushkin Drama Theatre - The Cherry Orchard

Tuesday 5 & Wednesday 6 February, Barbican Theatre

Russian screen and stage star, Victoria Isakova, plays Lyubov Ranevskaya in Vladimir Mirzoyev's enigmatic, soulful production of Chekhov's prophetic masterpiece,The Cherry Orchard.

The epitome of measured elegance, Ranevskaya, returns to her estate when she learns her beloved orchard is to be sold off to repay debts. Beautiful, romantic, sensual and irresponsible, Ranevskaya is haunted by the ghost of her drowned son, Misha, who is given a physical presence on stage. He haunts the drama as the impending sale and destruction of the cherry orchard become inevitable. Ranevskaya and her family entourage fail to recognise their plight, living in denial, while the world they know succumbs to the tide of transformation led by the upwardly mobile Lopakhin, played by screen and stage star, Alexander Petrov. The Cherry Orchard embodies the spirit of Russia at the turn of the 20th century and Vladimir Mirzoyev's ghostly, contemporary version conveys societal collapse recognisable in more recent events.

The Cherry Orchard is performed in Russian with English surtitles.

Journalists please note: there is an opportunity to see The Cherry Orchard in Russia in November prior to the Barbican performances. Please contact the Barbican's Communications Office for more details.

Tickets for The Cherry Orchard are on sale.

Moscow Pushkin Drama Theatre - The Good Person of Szechwan

Friday 8 & Saturday 9 February 2019, Barbican Theatre

Yuriy Butusov directs a bold, vigorous production of Brecht's parable, The Good Person of Szechwan. The gods come to Earth in search of a good person and find Shen Te, a sex worker, who puts them up for the night. The gods reward her good deed, enabling her to buy a tobacco shop and try to turn her life around. But being good and poor is not easy and soon various freeloaders take advantage of her generosity leading Shen Te to invent a non-existent cousin, Shui Ta, who is ruthless and pragmatic enough to thwart everyone's exploitative schemes.

Alexandra Ursulyak gives a bold, compelling performance of the opposing cousins, painting a vivid picture of an individual trapped by circumstance and the unfairness of humans and gods alike. The problem of how to remain good and survive in a cruel world remains unsolved. Ursulyak's performance won her a Golden Mask Theatre Award in Russia and she heads up an ensemble of actors and musicians who perform Paul Dessau's songs in the original German. With its focus on the duality of human nature and the odds of survival in unstable circumstances this production is uncompromising and politically potent.

The Good Person of Szechwan is performed in Russian with English surtitles.

Journalists please note: there is an opportunity to see The Good Person of Szechwan in Russia in November prior to the Barbican performances. Please contact the Barbican's Communications Office for more details.

Tickets for The Good Person of Szechwan are on sale.

Moscow Pushkin Drama Theatre - Mother's Field

Saturday 9 February 2019, 2.30pm & 7.45pm, The Pit

Mother's Field is based on an enduring story by Soviet-Kyrgyz writer, Chingiz Aitmatov. Revered as a giant of 20th century Russian literature, Aitmatov published his story eighteen years after the Second World War, ushering in mythical folklorish elements to his realistic fiction.

Tolgani, a strong Kyrgyz woman, has a special connection with Mother Earth, a companion in whom she confides and seeks commiseration. Granted a healthy family, her bounty is lost to misfortune when war intervenes. Back in her beloved fields, her heart is torn apart by grief.

Striking physicality and gesture convey the narrative in this potent performance without words - a brave plea for peace and humanity directed and choreographed bySergei Zemlyansky. Set to a haunting musical score characterised by the sounds of the cello, the young artists of the Pushkin Company convey thoughts and emotions via movement rather than speech in this expressive performance. Mother's Field explores timeless themes of family relationships, nationhood, war and survival.

Tickets for Mother's Field are on sale.

Charles Atlas/Rashaun Mitchell/Silas Riener - Tesseract

Thursday 28 February-Saturday 2 March 2019, Barbican Theatre

An inventive exploration of the relationship between the human form and technology, presented in two distinct acts.

To open the show, an astonishing 3D film with vividly contrasting chapters in which movement and setting fuse seamlessly. Space is transformed in imagined and hybrid worlds through manipulating the size and shape of the dancers' bodies and the audience's proximity to them.

For the second part, a live performance is captured by multiple cameras onstage; the footage mixed and projected onto a translucent screen, offering various perspectives of the crisp, intricate and innovative choreography.

Tesseract is an ambitious work by choreographic duo Rashaun Mitchell and Silas Riener (former Merce Cunningham Dance Company dancers), together with pioneering video artist Charles Atlas (who was a long term collaborator of Merce Cunningham). Inspired by science fiction and time travel, and experimental in form and technique, it is rich in psychedelic, potent, disorientating and hypnotic images.

Journalists please note: there is an opportunity to see Tesseract in the US in November prior to the Barbican performances. Please contact the Barbican's Communications Office for more details.

Tesseract is part of Life Rewired: a season exploring what it means to be human when technology is changing everything.

Tickets for Tesseract are on sale.

Internationaal Theater Amsterdam (Toneelgroep Amsterdam) - Medea

Wednesday 6-Saturday 9 March 2019, Barbican Theatre

Simon Stone finds a contemporary reality for this masterful retelling of Euripides' Medea.

After involuntary confinement in a psychiatric hospital, Anna, once a successful doctor, is determined to put things right. Willing to forgive her husband's affair with a younger woman, she wants a fresh start with him and their children. But he has different plans. Sidelined and in danger of losing everything, she is driven into a corner and sees only one way out.

Marieke Heebink, seen at the Barbican in Toneelgroep's astonishing Persona last year, won the Dutch acting award, the Theo d'Or, for her role as Medea. Coupled with incomparable performances by the ensemble, magnified at times by live video, audiences are turned into complicit witnesses.

An Australian director who reinvents classics, Stone gained five-star reviews at the Barbican for The Wild Duck in 2014 whilst his recent production of Yerma won multiple Olivier Awards.

Medea is performed in Dutch with English surtitles.

Journalists please note: there is an opportunity to see Medea in Madrid in November prior to the Barbican performances. Please contact the Barbican's Communications Office for more details.

Ballet Black - Double Bill

Thursday 14-Sunday 17 March 2019, Barbican Theatre

Ballet Black return to the Barbican for the fourth consecutive year following their previous sell-out seasons.

Led by Artistic Director Cassa Pancho, recent recipient of the Freedom of the City of London for her contribution to diversity in ballet, the company celebrates dancers of black and Asian descent.

This year, forming the first half of the Double Bill, is Ingoma, created by company dancer and choreographer Mthuthuzeli November. Through a fusion of ballet, African dance and singing, the piece portrays a milestone moment in South African history and imagines the struggles of black miners in 1946, when 60,000 of them took courageous strike action.

Completing the Double Bill is another original work, a light-hearted and engaging narrative ballet by Italian choreographer and Co-founder of Protein Dance, Luca Silvestrini.

Marcus du Sautoy and Victoria Gould - I is a strange loop

Thursday 21-Saturday 23 March 2019, The Pit

From the creative ensemble behind Complicité's sensational A Disappearing Number, this two-hander is an intriguing take on mortality, consciousness and artificial life.

Alone in a cube that glows in the darkness, X is content with his infinite universe and abstract thought. But then Y appears, insisting they interact, exposing him to her sensory and physical existence. Each begins to hanker after what the other has until a remarkable thing happens...involving a strange loop.

Featuring mathematicians Marcus du Sautoy and Victoria Gould - both contributors to recent Complicité hits - I is a strange loop is part of a Barbican series, Strange Loops, investigating consciousness through music, machines and the mind. Led by du Sautoy, who takes inspiration from the 40th anniversary of Douglas Hofstadter's seminal book, Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, the series reveals links between systems and creativity, and technology and humanity, using theatre, music and art.

I is a strange loop is directed by Dermot Keaney and is part of Life Rewired: a season exploring what it means to be human when technology is changing everything.

Tickets for I is a strange loop are on sale.

Ursula Martinez - A Family Outing: 20 Years On

Wednesday 27-Saturday 30 March 2019, The Pit

Twenty years after bringing her parents onstage in the sublime A Family Outing, Ursula Martinez attempts to recreate the show, without her dad, and with a mother who can no longer remember her lines.

Absorbed in wryly honest and frank conversation, a mother and daughter expose the banalities, hilarity, foibles and frustrations of their relationship. Contrasting past and present, they bicker, cajole and encourage each other through this endearingly ad hoc, entertaining and ultimately uplifting performance.

Since A Family Outing original premiered in 1998, Martinez has turned 50, her father Arthur has passed away and her mother Mila has been diagnosed with early stage dementia. Through a canny interplay with the first production, this bracingly funny new show blurs the lines between artifice and reality while grappling with identity and the march of time.

A Family Outing: 20 Years On is part of Life Rewired: a season exploring what it means to be human when technology is changing everything.

Tickets for A Family Outing: 20 Years On are on sale.

Wayward Productions in association with Complicité

Grief is the Thing with Feathers

Monday 25 March-Saturday 13 April 2019, Barbican Theatre

Cillian Murphy (Peaky Blinders) gives a riveting, shape-shifting performance in Enda Walsh's adaptation of Max Porter's multi-award winning novel, a heart-wrenching meditation on love, loss and living.

In a London flat, two young boys face the unbearable sadness of their mother's sudden death. Their father, a scruffy romantic, imagines a future of well-meaning visitors and emptiness. In this moment of despair, they are visited by Crow - antagonist, babysitter, trickster and healer. This sentimental bird is drawn to the grieving family and threatens to stay until they no longer need him.

Grief is the Thing with Feathers is the second piece by Enda Walsh in our programme. September 2018 saw the UK premiere of his modern opera The Second Violinist, and in April 2019 Rooms also makes its UK premiere.

Wayward Productions is a new company led by Judith Dimant who was Executive Producer at Complicité for 25 years, producing all of the work of Simon McBurney. Grief is the Thing with Feathers is the inaugural production from Wayward Productions.

Ferran Carvajal/Trevor Carlson - Not a moment too soon

Thursday 4-Saturday 6 April, Silk Street Theatre

Trevor Carlson, Executive Director to Merce Cunningham, reflects on the 12 years he spent as companion and close friend to the choreographer, offering a rare insight into the final days of a master.

In 2001, in a dressing room in Australia, Cunningham stared at his reflection while filming himself on his newly acquired camcorder, a device he went on to use prolifically. Interested in the fleeting nature of things, he uttered the words: 'not a moment too soon'.

Taking this recording as a starting point, Carlson's performance is a tapestry of video, text, music and movement layered with previously unseen footage of Cunningham. As Carlson weaves in and around projection panels hung onstage, he presents a visual and oral history of their adventures through recollections of precious moments spent together. A pilgrimage into memory, the dream-like solo shifts between monologues, readings and intimate clips of the iconic artist at work and at play. Tapping into key periods of Cunningham's later life this is a touching farewell to a loved one.

Not a moment too soon is part of the official celebration of the Merce Cunningham Centennial.

Galway International Arts Festival - Rooms

Thursday 11- Friday 19 April 2019, Silk Street Theatre

Press performances: Thursday 11 April 2019. Times vary, please contact the Communications Office to book your place

Five meticulously detailed rooms house clues to the characters once confined within their walls in this immersive theatre installation. Together, six audience members enter one of the five rooms, exploring the scene for a few moments. Then the recorded audio begins - an absorbing and haunting aural account of solitude, before audiences are ushered into the next room for another story. Contemplative and atmospheric, this event brings Enda Walsh's five poetic short narratives together for the first time. In each room the highly intimate lives of an individual are heard, narrated by some of Ireland's finest actors: Niall Buggy, Charlie Murphy, Donal O'Kelly, Paul Reid and Eileen Walsh.

Rooms is the third piece by Enda Walsh in our programme. September 2018 saw the UK premiere of his modern opera The Second Violinist, and in March/April 2019 Grief is the Thing with Feathers also makes its UK premiere.

Lynette Wallworth - Collisions

Wednesday 10-Saturday 20 April 2019, The Pit

Journalists are invited to attend on Thursday 11 April 2019. Times vary, please contact the Communications Office to book your place

This immersive Emmy Award-winning documentary is a startling collision between cultures, encompassing 360-degree vision, CGI animation and enveloping sound.

Provided with VR headsets, audiences embark on a journey together to the ancient homeland of indigenous elder Nyarri Nyarri Morgan, as he recounts the moment his world was turned upside down. Amid the endless horizon of the remote Western Australian desert, this is a rare insight into the hidden history of Britain's nuclear testing.

Pioneer of interactive digital technologies, Lynette Wallworth combines masterful storytelling and virtual reality to share the profound truth of one man's first and fateful encounter with Western science. The short, powerful piece, seen at Sundance, Davos and screened at UN meetings, shows how events can reverberate through generations, and how to care for the planet from the perspective of one of its oldest peoples - the Martu tribe to which Morgan belongs.

Collisions is part of Life Rewired: a season exploring what it means to be human when technology is changing everything.

Tickets for Collisions are on sale.

Merce Cunningham Trust - Night of 100 Solos: A Centennial Event

Tuesday 16 April 2019, 7.45pm, Barbican Theatre

As part of the Merce Cunningham Centennial, a global celebration of the vastly influential American choreographer, the Barbican presents Night of 100 Solos on 16 April 2019, which would have been Cunningham's 100th birthday.

In Night of 100 Solos, the largest Cunningham Event ever conceived, 75 dancers will be distributed across three venues: the Barbican; BAM in New York City and UCLA's Center for the Art of Performance in Los Angeles. On each of these stages, dancers perform a unique collection of 100 solos Cunningham choreographed over the course of his career, with live music and a bespoke set design. Nearly half of Cunningham's former company members participate in this Event, led at the Barbican by Londoner Daniel Squire.

This exceptional p