Rural Touring Dance Initiative Present Ben Wright's Point Of Echoes

Created as a collaboration between choreographer Ben Wright and musician/writer Stuart Warwick, Point of Echoes is a haunting tale of love, death and monsters, set on a lighthouse somewhere off the coast of England. It's the first commission from the Rural Touring Dance Initiative (RTDI), a project designed to boost the amount of contemporary dance on offer in rural communities. Especially designed to be performed in village halls, Point of Echoes will tour to rural venues, as well as visiting more conventional theatre venues such as Warwick Arts Centre, Swindon Dance and The Point, Eastleigh.

The year is 1978, isolated from the mainland, Eric Valentine and Bernard Humphries have been stationed at Echo Point lighthouse. The unlikely strangers have just begun to lay down foundations for this odd working relationship when the uncanny occurs. Point of Echoes marks the return of bgroup's Ben Wright to the UK following three years spent in Sweden as Associate Director of Skånes Dansteater.

Speaking about the commission Ben Wright said "After spending the last three years creating dance predominately for the large-scale in Sweden, this invitation to create work for UK village halls has beguiled my entire creative team. The rural touring circuit offers us a unique opportunity to meet and engage people up close and on their turf. To bring a little bit of epic to smaller spaces. Our pilot tour was tremendous fun and we are incredibly excited to now officially premiere the work in the Spring."

Ben Wright played the prince in the original cast of Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake and has danced with Ricochet, London Contemporary Dance Theatre, Richard Alston Dance Company and Stan Won't Dance before forming bgroup in 2008. In January 2014 he was appointed Associate Artistic Director of Skanes Dansteater in Sweden, where he continues to work as their Associate Choreographer. In January 2018 Ben will take up a new post as one of the Co-artistic directors of Candoco Dance Company, the company of disabled and non-disabled dancers.

The Rural Touring Dance Initiative is a scheme designed to make and tour dance performances to and for rural areas. Made possible by a grant from Arts Council England's Lottery-funded Strategic Touring Programme, the initiative is led by National Rural Touring Forum (NRTF), which joined with dance institution The Place, arts charity Take Art and independent producing studio China Plate to deliver the scheme. To date, companies including Luca Silvestrini's Protein and Lost Dog have taken adapted versions of existing shows on the road. Point of Echoes is the first dance work to be especially commissioned especially for the rural touring circuit as part of the initiative. The RTDI recently had its funding renewed for a further three years, allowing it to adapt and commission further dance works for total touring.

Trailer: https://vimeo.com/241501245https://vimeo.com/241501245