Yewande 103 Will Bring MANY LIFETIMES to Lilian Baylis Studio This March
Yewande 103 explores existential themes in upcoming dance installation
Alexandrina Yewande Hemsley's interdisciplinary dance company Yewande 103 will bring poetic new dance installation Many Lifetimes to Sadler's Wells' Lilian Baylis Studio in March 2026.
Beneath a suspended linen canopy and gentle rain of melting ice, Many Lifetimes continues founder Alexandrina Yewande Hemsley's enquiries into tidal cycles of love, loss and repair. Accompanied by live music from Bianca Wilson and Femi Oriogun-Williams, a series of gentle solos structure the piece, movement transforming between one performer and the next.
Working collaboratively with dancers, musicians and disability access advocates, including Pierre Babbage, Rickae Hewitt-Martin, Greta Mendez, Rudzani Moleya, B. Solomon, Alice Tatge, alongside Hemsley, this sculptural and tender performance is steeped in personal archives around change, remembrance and gathering.
Yewande 103 (Y103) is a Black, disabled-led, neurodiverse, survivor-led, parent-led dance organisation founded in July 2020 by Alexandrina Hemsley. They aim to foreground the overlaps between dance & mental health for our audiences & participants via immersive, accessible, nationwide dance.
Alexandrina has performed and choreographed nationally and internationally since 2009. Her work has been commissioned by and presented at Sadler's Wells, The British Museum, Battersea Arts Centre, Southbank Centre, Cambridge Junction, MDI, South East Dance, Chisenhale Dance Space and The Yard Theatre, TheaterForman, Dance City and more. Alexandrina works with intricate improvisation scores and vivid performance environments which insist on conjuring embodied enquiries into a multiplicity of voices. This includes work within organisations around anti-racism, anti-ableism and embodied advocacy.
Hemsley said:
“Many Lifetimes offers a gentle, hopeful space for holding and reflection on change, grief and repair. As a Black disabled artist, with hidden disabilities, experiences of profound loss and 17 years as a choreographer and performer, I've come to understand how much our bodies hold, and how rarely we're given time to listen to them.
The cast I have been so fortunate to work with are majority disabled and/or neurodivergent, and the work is shaped by ‘crip time': a slower, generous way of being together. This piece grows from both my lived experience and my wider advocacy – from developing inclusive principles, access riders and furthering racial and disability justice within dance. Watery symbolism has shaped my practice since 2015 and within Many Lifetimes, we work with it as a container for our joy and grief. As a solo is passed along each performer, a tidal ebb and flow emerges. I hope audiences feel gently invited into the gathering, are able to soak in the atmosphere of the piece, and, in witnessing us dance, to pause and be with their own bodies, memories and lived experiences.”
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