PIA Will Make its World Premiere at the Barbican

PIA, a new dance and music production choreographed and directed by Katya Bourvis in collaboration with creative producer Tala Lee-Turton and performed to music by award-winning composer Hannah Peel, will receive its world premiere at Milton Court Concert Hall, Barbican, on Friday 23 October.

The production, commissioned by the Barbican and Barnsley Civic, will be performed at Barnsley Civic on Thursday 14 October 2027.

PIA features a 17-piece brass band performing Peel's critically-acclaimed Mary Casio: Journey To Cassiopeia, a seven-movement odyssey originally recorded in Barnsley Civic. The story follows Pia, a woman from Barnsley, over three generations of her life as her mind journeys amongst the collieries of her hometown and vivid dreams of space travel.

PIA marks the first production by interdisciplinary production company Red Robin Productions, the company directed by dance artist and creative producer Tala Lee-Turton who is an Associate Artist of Barnsley Civic.

Katya Bourvis is an award-winning choreographer. In 2021, she was selected as an artist-in-residence at Sadler's Wells. Most recently, her work was presented as part of The Royal Ballet's International Draft Works 2026. She says: "For me, PIA is a profound moment of recognition, a celebration of the imagination and of a woman's life lived."

Tala said: “I'm proud to be contributing to Barnsley's cultural legacy through PIA. and am delighted that it will be performed there as well as in London. Barnsley Civic have always supported and encouraged my work, seeing me grow from individual creative practitioner to Director of my own company- it's wonderful that PIA will be performed here as well as in London. As an intersectional artist from Barnsley, it means a great deal to be telling a story that transcends typical social realist portrayals of my hometown- instead, fashioning a dreamscape which oscillates between the magnitude of the cosmic and the sensitivity of the everyday.”