Warrington Museum to Host Trio of Dancers and Orchestra in Commission

A new hybrid dance theatre production featuring some of the region's top talent is to be presented in Warrington in the first commission of its kind. Company Carpi's When You Light A Candle, You Also Cast A Shadow aims to be both a challenging, genre-defying piece of work and a call to action to raise awareness of the dangerous state of our climate.

Created by choreographer Bettina Carpi and composer Gary Lloyd, the performance at Warrington Museum and Art Gallery on Saturday, 25 June, will combine the talents of a trio of dancers - Daisy Belle Howell, Paige Lyon and Lauren Tucker - and a live string quintet.

The musicians, organised by cellist Lucy Arch, are drawn from the best orchestras in the north west including Manchester Camerata, BBC Philharmonic and The Hallé and the piece is also given extra weight and poignancy thanks to a specially commissioned poetry cycle by the award-winning writer and academic Mary Talbot.

The Arts Council England supported piece is the first commission of its kind - in partnership with Culture Warrington, Dance Consortia North West and Lancaster Arts - and will be both a celebration of nature and a warning.

The production will consider opposing forces such as harmony and chaos and creation and destruction and explore how those opposing states are interlinked. As such, the piece will pay tribute to nature and its resilience as well as highlight the dangerous state of our climate and our planet.

Leah Biddle, Cultural Manager at Culture Warrington, said: "Welcoming Company Carpi to perform within our beautiful art gallery is a dream come true. The company's ethos of combining dance, live music and original writing to highlight the climate crisis is something incredibly unique and a very exciting opportunity for Warrington's community.

"Having collaborated with Company Carpi on other projects recently I have experienced first-hand the incredible quality of their work and I'm excited to be able to present this new commission in a non-traditional performance space, hopefully attracting new audiences who may not previously have experienced contemporary dance or orchestral musicians performing live."

Bettina Carpi and Gary Lloyd added: "We are very excited to bring When You Light A Candle to Warrington. Adam Holloway of Cheshire Dance commented that the piece has 'at its core, a gorgeous heart' which says so much about our aim to create artistic works that anyone can warm to. We've had really great support from Culture Warrington and we're looking forward hugely to performing for the people of Warrington."

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