LET'S DANCE INTERNATIONAL FRONTIERS Set for April-May Run in Leicester

Let's Dance International Frontiers (LDIF) is the highly regarded and hugely popular annual Leicester-based dance festival which launches every year on 29 April (International Dance Day). Produced by Serendipity Institute for Black Arts and Heritage, the festival celebrates dance, cultural diversity, and artistic innovation through live performances, workshops, and conferences. The event runs 29 April - 9 May 2026.

LDIF is famed for spotlighting African, Caribbean, and Latin American Diaspora voices and of its discovery and platforming of national and international exciting new talent.

LDIF was founded 16 years ago by its dynamic Artistic Director, Pawlet Brookes MBE, who is also CEO of Serendipity Institute for Black Arts and Heritage. "I'm very excited for this year's LDIF; we have some thrilling live performances which I think will entertain as much as challenge our ever-growing audiences. There are dozens of opportunities for festival attendees to access masterclasses, workshops, and discussions run by experienced professionals. Every year these are designed to appeal to dance and theatre practitioners and professionals as well as students and newcomers."

The theme for this year's festival is Reimagining Tomorrow: New Work, Afrofuturism and Technology: an exploration of the unique aesthetics of dance rooted in the African and African Caribbean Diaspora. We are presenting a dazzling array of new work from the UK as well as Barbados, Cameroon, Cuba, Gabon, Jamaica, Tanzania, Trinidad and Tobago, South Africa, Martinique, Uganda, and the USA. UK premieres include Becoming by Tanzanian dancer and artist, Samwel Japhet who will open the festival on 29 April, and Océan Brun, a duet of urgency reflecting on the impact of environmental change (30 April) which will be performed by Martinique's radical Compagnie Kam.

New works of dance and performance will be presented on 1 May in New Work: Solos and Duets. This is the inaugural edition of a platform which presents the developing works of emerging artists a vital part of what we do at Serendipity.

Our other, very popular programmes of new work, are Signatures and the Black British Dance Platform (6 May) which will showcase establishing dance practitioners from the UK and abroad.

LDIF26 will close with the much-anticipated return of the New York-based company, Shamel Pitts|TRIBE and the UK debut of Marks of RED, a multi-disciplinary performance experience that weaves together exquisite performance with bold scenography. Led by company founder, dancer/choreographer Shamel Pitts, the piece is firmly anchored in the distinctive Gaga movement style in which Pitts was trained. Drawing inspiration from sumo wrestling, butoh dance, and techno music, Pitts moulds ritual, movement, and sound into an Afrofuturist meditation on Black embodiment. (photograph by Alex Apt)

Space for discussion is central to every year's programme. Alongside the Dance Dialogue seminars, the Annual Conference (5 May) features an esteemed lineup of speakers including Brenda Dixon Gottschild, Shamel Pitts, Julie Felix MBE, Kenneth Olumuyiwa Tharp CBE, Quentin Sledge, and Marlène Myrtil. This year's festival features another new addition: Yesterday and Tomorrow: Roundtable Discussion and Dinner (2 May) which will offer participants an opportunity to reflect on the development and direction of Black British dance through a shared culinary experience curated by the celebrated Chef Lauren Wilmott, a semi-finalist on MasterChef: The Professionals.

LDIF is worth discovering in itself—it hosts 12 different countries, an array of UK and world premieres, numerous dance masterclasses and discussions galore.

Pawlet Brookes has an eye for talent. She was the first person to bring African American choreographer Kyle Abraham to the UK in 2015, who has since made work for the Royal Ballet. Brookes also gave a UK platform to Germaine Acogny from Senegal who performed at Sadler's Wells in London the following year. And she introduced us to Haitian choreographer Jeanguy Saintus who went on to create work for Phoenix Dance.

LDIF is presented by the Serendipity Institute for Black Arts and Heritage, led with great energy and enthusiasm by Pawlet Brookes MBE. Both Serendipity and its LDIF product deserve many accolades.

As founder, CEO, and Artistic Director of Leicester-based Serendipity Institute for Black Arts and Heritage, Pawlet Brookes MBE launched Let's Dance International Frontiers in 2011 to showcase high-quality dance that celebrates diversity, to center perspectives from the African and African Caribbean Diaspora, and present them as cultural experiences for all audiences. LDIF offers a diverse and innovative programme that encapsulates the rich international tapestry of Leicester, featuring an array of performances, engaging discussion seminars, hands-on masterclasses, and an insightful annual conference.

LDIF is a crucial platform for the arts, showcasing over 340 artists and dance companies including 92 UK premieres and 49 world premieres, highlighting its role as a launchpad for new works and talent in the dance community. In addition, LDIF has prioritized the development of emerging artists through various initiatives such as Signatures, the Black British Dance Platform, all in partnership with FABRIC. The festival also features masterclasses, discussions, film and local, national, and international networking.

Serendipity Institute for Black Arts and Heritage is also in the process of developing a digital archive, Unearthed: Forgotten Histories, supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund. In 2024, Pawlet launched the first art exhibition of its kind: 100 Black Women Who Have Made A Mark at Leicester Gallery, De Montfort University. The exhibition ran at Curve Leicester in 2025. In October 2025, Pawlet was appointed as Chair of Arts Council England's Midlands Area Council.

Let's Dance International Frontiers 2026: At-a-glance Programme

• Date: LDIF26 Launch
• Becoming - Samwel Japhet (Tanzania)
• Sonje - Lauryn Pinard (Haiti/France/UK)
• Océan Brun - Compagnie Kam
• New Work: Solos and Duets
• Family Honour - Kwame Asafo-Adeji | Spoken Movement (UK)
• I See You, You See Me - Choreographed by Dak Mashava; Performed by Conn Williams and Theo Canham-Spence (UK)
• Unspoken Queens - Choreographed by Charly Mintya; Performed by Claire Nadine Gwem (Cameroon)
• EN-CORPS - Faustin Arnould Ntoutoume (Gabon)
• Roundtable and Dinner - Yesterday and Tomorrow: Roundtable Discussion and Dinner
• Angie Amra Anderson, Stewart Avon Arnold, Greta Mendez, Nahum McLean, Chef Lauren Wilmott
• Reimagining Tomorrow: New Work, Afrofuturism and Technology
• Brenda Dixon Gottschild (USA)
• Julie Felix MBE (UK)
• Shamel Pitts (USA)
• Marlène Myrtil (Martinique/France)
• Quentin Sledge (USA)
• Kenneth Olumuyiwa Tharp (UK)
• Serendipity Connect Networking
• Jamal Callender (Barbados/USA)
• Diaspora in Motion: Tradition, Technology and Transformation - Christopher Rudd (Jamaica/USA)
• Signatures and the Black British Dance Platform
• Quilt - CDT (Jamaica)
• Sending Up My Timber - Alexandria Davis (USA)
• Firefly - Tabandeke Joseph (Uganda)
• Mares - Perspectives Collective (UK)
• Together - Choreographed by Douglas Thorpe; Performed by Imogen Wright and Kadafi Mulula (UK)
• Ballet Foundations, Contemporary Futures - Javier Torres (Cuba/UK)

Hybridity and Empowerment: Black Women Reimagining Tomorrow

Contemporary Expression - Sharon Watson MBE (UK)

Jouvay Somatics: A Workshop on Healing with African-Caribbean Movement - Sonja Dumas (Trinidad and Tobago)

Marks of RED - Shamel Pitts | TRIBE (USA)

Afrofuturism Embodied

Celebrating 40 Years of Black Intervention: People Dancing