Yorke Dance Project Reveals Premieres For Autumn

Yorke Dance Project, the contemporary ballet company run by Yolande Yorke-Edgell, has two major premieres this autumn: its film of Sea of Troubles, Sir Kenneth MacMillan’s ballet based on Hamlet, and a new mixed bill, California Connections, which pays tribute to three inspirational female choreographers – Isadora Duncan, Martha Graham and Bella Lewitzy.

Yorke Dance Project first revived Sea of Troubles to great acclaim in 2016. Now the company, in association with The Royal Ballet, have immortalised this 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.

Filmed on location at the historic Hatfield House, Sea of Troubles will premiere at the Clore Studio at the Royal Opera House on 10 October, World Mental Health Day. MacMillan’s ballet was widely viewed to have broken new ground in its treatment of mental distress and the company will be running a series of workshops entitled MINDFUL, created in collaboration with mental health charity MIND. The programme will work with at-risk young people aged 13 to 18 using dance to reinforce their sense of agency and increase their resilience, physical and mental wellbeing.

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

Yorke-Edgell set up Yorke Dance Project in Los Angeles 25 years ago. Its new mixed bill California Connections: Three Pioneering Women nods to the company’s beginnings and pays tribute to three influential female choreographers from the state – Isadora Duncan, Martha Graham and Bella Lewitzky.

Created for The Royal Ballet in 1981, Kenneth MacMillan’s three-act ballet Isadora captured the life of San Francisco native Isadora Duncan. Now Yorke Dance Project, Yolande Yorke-Edgell and Lady Deborah MacMillan have distilled the original into a new one-act chamber work which explores the conflict between Isadora’s search for love and her mission to revolutionise the art of dance.

Martha Graham spent her formative years in Santa Barbara, California where she was first introduced to dance. Her 1947 masterpiece Errand into the Maze is a duet based on the legends of Ariadne, Theseus and the Minotaur. Influenced by the theories of the psychologist Carl Jung and set to a score by Gian Carlo Menotti, it confronts human fear and explores sexual power struggles. At the UK premiere in Leeds, former company member, Laurel Dalley Smith, now with the Martha Graham Dance Company, will make a guest appearance in the work.

Bella Lewitzky created the boldly sculptural and physically demanding Meta 4 in 1994. Four dancers perform four movements to an original score for string quartet by Robert Xavier Rodriguez. Yolande Yorke-Edgell danced with Bella Lewitzky from 1994 to 1998 when Lewitzky retired and the company disbanded.

Inspired by the power of these three women and the essence of their enduring legacies, Yolande Yorke-Edgell premieres her latest work as part of this programme.

The dancers for California Connections are: Luke Ahmet, Amy Thake, Ellie Ferguson, Edd Mitton, Pierre Tappon, Dane Hurst (in 2024), Abigail Attard Montalto, Harry Wilson and Jenny Hayes.

In September, October and November, dancers from Yorke Dance Project will be performing excerpts from California Connections as part of Ballet Nights, uniquely compered evenings of classical ballet, neo-classical and contemporary dance.  Further information in listings below.

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