SIX LETHARGIES World Premiere to Open at Sadler's Wells

The acclaimed BalletBoyz will return to London's Sadler's Wells Theatre in their 25th year with an exclusive World Premiere of a major new work, Six Lethargies from 18 - 21 November 2026. Today, first-look images have been released from the rehearsal room taken by Alex Storey.

Six Lethargies is an intimate human experience on a breathtaking scale in an attempt to embody the intangible. With 37 string players on stage and a company of 44 dancers, choreographers Iván Pérez and Seirian Griffiths respond to Keaton Henson's 2019 work of the same name, which asked the question if I write how it feels to me, will you feel it too?

In answering this question with movement, Pérez and Griffiths have worked together with BalletBoyz founders Michael Nunn and William Trevitt to create an audacious rendering of emotion that depicts the bridge between the personal and the universal.

Keaton Henson is a musician, composer, visual artist, poet, and long-time collaborator of BalletBoyz. He has released six studio albums to critical acclaim and played sold out shows around the world. Iván Pérez began his career as a dancer with Netherlands Dans Theater and has since then worked prolifically as a choreographer, including working with BalletBoyz on the critically acclaimed piece Young Men. Seirian Griffiths is a dancer, choreographer, and musician known for his practice of gravity mechanics.

Now in its 25th year, BalletBoyz is one of Britain's leading contemporary dance companies, known for breaking down barriers in dance through its accessible approach to excellence, and for its work in redefining dance on stage and screen. Sadler's Wells Associate Artists since 2005, Nunn and Trevitt are renowned for consistently seeking out new collaborations and innovative ways of sharing dance.

The company of dancers is led by Joshua Attwood, Dan Baines, Alex de la Bastide, Paris Fitzpatrick, Dylan Jones, Elisabet Liisu Cerenius, Faye Tan and Kai Tomioka. They will be joined by an ensemble of performers to create a company of 44 mixed-gender dancers and a live 37-piece string orchestra on stage in an evening chronicling a journey through six stages of emotional landscapes.

Artistic Directors and BalletBoyz founders Michael Nunn and William Trevitt said: “In keeping with the original intentions for our Company, we are marking our 25th year with a bold, original and thought-provoking new work for the stage. Six Lethargies explores themes of anxiety, trauma and empathy through the power of dance in response to Keaton Henson's profoundly moving score.”

Keaton Henson added: “Six Lethargies is the thing I am most proud of, it was created to explore the physiology of music, how fervently it can manifest in our body and mind. So to me it is a logical next step to reinterpret it and tell a new story using the body itself. Without bias I felt immediately that BalletBoyz were the only company to work with to do this, with their ability to blur the lines between dance, reality and theatre.”

BalletBoyz: Six Lethargies