Mark Bruce Company's MACBETH Tour Kicks off This Month

The multi-award winning Mark Bruce Company will tour their haunting new dance/theatre re-imagining of Shakespeare's Macbeth in 2018.

With direction and choreography by visionary artistic director Mark Bruce, a cast of nine outstanding performers and dramatic design by the same creative team behind Dracula and The Odyssey, Mark Bruce Company's 'Macbeth' will realise a beautifully harrowing vision of an internal wasteland formed from the pursuit of power through ruthless means.

Drama, dance and film audiences will be drawn to Bruce's imaginative vision of the treacherous Macbeths' (Jonathan Goddard, Eleanor Duval left, photo by Nicole Guarino) toxic world of jealousy, ambition and corruption. Set in a supernatural and brutal underworld, both tragic and beautiful, with a horror film atmosphere of menace and murder ... all of this will be packed into Bruce's new production.

'MACBETH' tour dates:

January 25th-27th
Frome, Merlin Theatre
www.merlintheatre.co.uk

January 31st-February 1st
Winchester, Theatre Royal
www.theatreroyalwinchester.co.uk

February 8th, 9th
Birmingham, DanceXchange
www.dancexchange.org.uk

February 23rd to March 17th
London, Wilton's Music Hall
www.wiltons.org.uk

March 23rd 24th
Ipswich, Dance East
www.danceeast.co.uk

April 17th, 18th
Blackpool, The Grand
www.blackpoolgrand.co.uk

May 1st, 2nd
Exeter, Northcott Theatre
www.exeternorthcott.co.uk

May 10th-12th
Salisbury Playhouse
www.salisburyplayhouse.com

May 17th 18th
Milton Keynes, Stantonbury Theatre
www.stantonburytheatre.co.uk
Performers: Eleanor Duval, Jonathan Goddard, Jordi Calpe-Serrats, Christopher Thomas, Daisy West, Dominic Rocca, Hannah McGlashon, Steven Berkeley-White, Carina Howard.

Choreographer/director: Mark Bruce
Set design: Philip Eddolls
Lighting design: Guy Hoare
Costume design: Dorothée Brodrück

Artistic Director Mark Bruce: "Macbeth hits you fast, cuts through to the bone, and for me it is the least ambiguous of Shakespeare's plays. Its darkness opens our nightmares; we recognise fundamental traits inside ourselves and the consequences of acting upon them. The vicious pursuit of power to fill a void will always be relevant - the Macbeths are everywhere in every age, because they are a part of us.

"I first read Macbeth as a teenager and returning to it now the images, atmosphere it evokes have not changed. Its power lies in a relentless tale of supernatural horror told with a beauty and symbolism that reaches to the tragic state of the 'other'. The supernatural is always present in Macbeth, bending our own thoughts and perceptions as well as those of the protagonists. It infects us, always one step ahead, and Macbeth's decisions are made in the world of a nightmare as if there is no separation between thought and action. Murder is done and descent is rapid.

"The Macbeths are mere playthings of the evil they set free, and in the madness and emptiness that ensues they become but walking shadows, or, as in my adaptation, simply clowns of sound and fury."

Mark Bruce Company has built up a formidable reputation for uncompromising dance-theatre work. Early MBC productions include Moonlight Drive (1991), Lovesick (1995), Helen, Angel (1996), Horse (1998), Dive (1999) and At Louse Point (1997) with Polly Jean Harvey and John Parish. Mark Bruce has made work for other companies including Fever to Tell (2005) and The Sky or a Bird (2008) for Probe, Stars for Dance South West, Green Apples for the ROH's Clore Studio Summer Collection, Bad History for the Place Prize 2006, Crimes of Passion (2010) and Medea (2011) for Bern Ballet. MBC's more recent productions include Sea of Bones (2007), Love and War (2010) which opened at the Bristol Tobacco Factory, Made In Heaven (2012), the award-winning Dracula (2013, 2014), and The Odyssey (2016).

Mark co-devised Skellig (2008), an opera based on the book by David Almond, for the Sage Gateshead; the Royal Exchange Theatre's productions of The Bacchae, Antigone, The Glass Menagerie, The Revenger's Tragedy, Antony & Cleopatra, Peer Gynt, As You Like It, Fast Food, Still Time and The Way of the World. He directed Rick Bland's award-winning Thick which toured the UK, US and Canada and in 2015 worked with Singapore Repertory Theatre on their production of The Tempest. Mark has also worked in a variety of new media, screen and interactive stage productions with Ruth Gibson & Bruno Martelli of Igloo. He has written music for his own work and for art installations and is published by Mute Song. His book of short stories, Blackout Zones was released in May 2010. Mark is currently completing his book on Choreography and Making Dance Theatre.