The Royal Ballet and Yorke Dance Project to Present the world Premiere of David Stewart's Film of SEA OF TROUBLES

The Royal Ballet and Yorke Dance Project will present the world premiere of a new film of Kenneth MacMillan’s ballet, Sea of Troubles. Screened in the Clore Studio on Tuesday 10 October, World Mental Health Day, the film explores the psychological truths and dynamics between the characters in Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
 

Yorke Dance Project first revived the stage work of Sea of Troubles in 2016. Now the company, in association with The Royal Ballet, has adapted MacMillan’s visceral work on film. Perfectly suited to the medium, Sea of Troubles is a classic tale of grief, despair, revenge, power and madness. It has been directed by Emmy-nominated documentary features director, David Stewart, who made 89, the story of Arsenal’s impossible league title triumph. Stewart first worked with Yorke Dance Project on Seven Portraits (originally titled Lockdown Portraits), seven solos created by Sir Robert Cohan before his death in 2021.
 

Sea of Troubles was filmed on location in the house and grounds of historic Hatfield House, a Grade I listed country house built in 1611 by Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury and Chief Minister to King James I.
 

The dancers are Dane Hurst as Hamlet and, playing various roles including Ophelia, Gertrude, Polonius and Claudius, Freya Jeffs, Royal Ballet Soloist Romany Pajdak, Oxana Panchenko, Edd Mitton and Ben Warbis.
 

Sea of Troubles was choreographed by Kenneth MacMillan in 1988. It was commissioned by, and created for, Dance Advance, a touring ballet company comprised of six dancers who had broken away from The Royal Ballet to take new chamber ballets to a nationwide audience. MacMillan became their patron. The original cast was: Michael Batchelor, Susie Crow, Jennifer Jackson, Russell Maliphant, Stephen Sheriff and Sheila Styles. In 2016, the ballet was revived by Yorke Dance Project and performed at the Royal Opera House as part of the 25th anniversary of MacMillan's death.