The Coronet Theatre Announces Autumn/Winter Season

The Coronet Theatre’s Autumn/Winter season is a presentation of multi-disciplinary Modern Stage-based art, with a spotlight on dance and movement related theatre forms, and an exceptional poetry strand. As always, the season offers inventive hybrid international work, showcasing performance from Europe to Asia. 

“Artists have always opened a window into the world and the pressures of times in which they live. The cultures may be very different across the globe, but the themes are universal. 

Our season reflects how this international group of creators – dancers, poets, musicians and theatre-makers use visual art and movement, from digital to traditional, to examine the pressures of cultural expectation. 

Using a broad artistic pallet, they voice the need to free ourselves from existing convention, and energise the conversation about the rapidly changing world in which we now live.” 

Anda Winters, Artistic Director 

Rhythm of Human - Leading Korean contemporary dance company Ambiguous return to The Coronet following last year’s sold-out Body Concert with a UK premiere which follows a modern Korean man who tries to break free from societal expectations and norms.      Wednesday 13 – Friday 15 September 

The Yellow Wallpaper - A new staging of Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s hugely influential semi-autobiographical novella. Combining theatre, dance, live video and sound, this genre-defying production is directed by Stephanie Mohr, and is performed by acclaimed actress and theatre maker Aurélia Thiérrée and Japanese dancer and choreographer Fukiko Takase.   Thursday 21 September – Saturday 7 October 

Las Alegrías (The Joys) - a UK Premiere from Spanish dancer and choreographer Paula Quintana. Performed in a body of water in the shadow of a suspended meteorite, this moving piece is a multidisciplinary spectacle blending dance with the texts of feminist writer and activist Roy Galán.   Friday 27 – Saturday 28 October 

Luigia Riva & Daniele Derossi: A Triple Bill - Italian dancer and choreographer Luigia Riva presents a triple bill of performance art spanning both the theatre and studio spaces. InCorpore(o) and Inretita are established pieces created in collaboration with writer and biologist Daniele Derossi. Involo will premiere at The Coronet Theatre, choreographed for dancer Nina Khokham.  Friday 10 – Saturday 11 November. 

Father Politics - Emerging Swiss hip-hop and contemporary dance collective Company MEK presents the UK premiere of their explosive piece Father Politics. Led by Muhammed Kalkut, Company MEK blend energetic innovative hip hop dance with a diverse political voice. Thursday 23 - Friday 24 November 

Then Or Now – Ballet Black celebrate the end of the 2023 Ballet Black: Pioneers season with a ‘made for film’ screening of their latest film Then Or Now - a powerful classical ballet set against the backdrop of Adrienne Rich’s poetry. Friday 1 December at 7.30pm

POETRY
The Coronet presents a series of poetry, and poetry performance events throughout the season including 2 events as part of the 10th Anniversary season of Poetry Club, The Coronet’s sell–out contemporary poetry stream, Dead
Poets Live from the T. S. Eliot Trust which celebrates major poets (details to be announced) and one-off events include Irene Santori and Yang Lian and YoYo. 

POETRY CLUB:
Don Paterson and Nick Laird Sunday 24 September
The fourth event in the 2023 series marking the 10th Anniversary of Poetry Club will be a reading by Don Paterson, Scottish poet and writer, whose many awards include double winner of the T.S. Eliot prize, and multi-award winning Irish poet Nick Laird. 

Daljit Nagra and Matthew Hollis Thursday 19 October
The fifth instalment in the 10th anniversary 2023 series features Forward Prize, South Bank Show Decibel Award and the Cholmondeley Award winner Daljit Nagra and award winning biographer, editor, professor and poet Matthew Hollis. 

Yang Lian and YoYo: An Evening of Poetry Sunday 1 October                                                   Award-winning poets Yang Lian and YoYo present a special evening of poetry reading their respective collections A Tower Built Downwards and One Man’s Decision to Become a Tree. 

Irene Santori: The Book of Liquids Friday 17 November
Italian award-winning poet, translator and essayist Irene Santori reads from her 2021 collection The Book of Liquids. Accompanied by musician Jacapo Dell’Erba, Santori delivers an illuminating performance, exploring a series of imagined childhood memories from modern times back to the Paleolithic - a dreamlike diorama of shared experiences through time. 

THE SEASON IN MORE DETAIL
 

Ambiguous Dance Company 

Rhythm of Human             UK PREMIERE                         DANCE

Choreography Boram Kim 

Wednesday 13 – Friday 15 September, 7.30pm 

Major Korean contemporary dance company Ambiguous return to The Coronet Theatre following last year’s sold-out Body Concert with the UK premiere of their award-winning piece Rhythm of Human. Rhythm of Human follows a modern Korean man who tries to break free from societal expectations and norms. The dancers blend genres and defy preconceptions to present a fresh, exciting and electric evening of dance. The performance shows us that dance is not just for dancers: we all have an inner rhythm that we need to express. 

One of Korea’s foremost contemporary dance companies, Ambiguous gained global recognition through their collaboration with super band Coldplay, reinforcing their status as one of the country’s most prominent collectives. 

Founded by choreographer Boram Kim and dancer Kyeongmin Jang in 2008, the name of the group perfectly describes the ‘undefinable’ characteristics of their genre-defying dance.

Tickets: £30, £20 Concessions: 20% off 

The Coronet Theatre presents

The Yellow Wallpaper        WORLD PREMIERE                 THEATRE/DANCE

Based on the short story by Charlotte Perkins Gilman 

Adapted and directed by Stephanie Mohr
Starring Aurélia Thiérrée and Fukiko Takase 

Thursday 21 September – Saturday 7 October, 7.30pm                                                                             

Press night Wednesday 26 September, 7.30pm 

A new staging of Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s semi-autobiographical and hugely influential novella. Combining theatre, dance, live video and sound, this genre-defying production is directed by Stephanie Mohr, and is performed by acclaimed actress and theatre maker Aurélia Thierrée (Bells and Spells) and Japanese dancer and choreographer Fukiko Takase (See Art Through The Body). This world premiere unites three outstanding Coronet Theatre artists to collaborate, combining the studio and auditorium spaces for the first time. 

Written in 1892, Gilman’s pioneering piece of feminist literature was considered one of the earliest examples of gothic horror. A young mother confined in room in a remote country estate by her physician husband, slowly becomes obsessed with the yellow wallpaper in the room he has chosen for her. In her isolation she sees a woman trapped in the patterns that she must attempt to free. 

This moving, dark and hallucinatory story explores identity and the physical and mental prisons we inhabit. 

Tickets: £40, £30, £20 Previews: 21 - 25 September, £32/24/16 Concessions 20% off 

Paula Quintana 

Las Alegrías             UK PREMIERE                         DANCE

Creator and performer Paula Quintana

Friday 27 – Saturday 28 October, 7.30pm

Acclaimed dancer and choreographer Paula Quintana brings her award-winning dance piece Las Alegrías (The Joys) to The Coronet Theatre for its UK premiere.

Las Alegrías (The Joys) focuses on joy as a generating, transforming and revolutionary power - an accompanied solo dance exploring joy as a vital and political act. Performed in a body of water in the shadow of a suspended meteorite, this moving piece is a multidisciplinary spectacle blending dance with the texts of feminist writer and activist Roy Galán.

Paula Quintana is an internationally recognised performer from Spain, who creates work across theatre, dance and audio-visual mediums. This choreographed installation embarks on a journey through a performers body that withdraws and rises, concentrating all the creative, feminine and mysterious power of joy. 

In Las Alegrías (The Joys) she expresses the committed leap of an artist determined to let herself be transformed by life and by the stage. 

Tickets: £20, £30 Concessions 20% off
Running Time: Approx 60mins Age Guidance 12+ 

Luigia Riva and Daniele Derossi 

A Triple Bill                UK/WORLD PREMIERE                     DANCE  

Creators Luigia Riva and Daniele Derossi 

Friday 10 – Saturday 11 November, 7.30pm Saturday      11 November 2.30pm (Matinee) 

Italian dancer and choreographer Luigia Riva presents a triple bill of performance art. InCorpore(O) and Inretita are established pieces created in collaboration with writer and biologist Daniele Derossi. Involo is a new work which will premiere at the Coronet Theatre choreographed for dancer Nina Khokham. 

The evening takes place over two spaces, the Main Auditorium and The Print Room Studio, and audiences will move between them during the performance. 

INCORPORE(O) 

Creators & Performers: Luigia Riva and Daniele Derossi 

Incorpore(o) is a performance installation exploring anatomy and our relationship to the body. Blending the grotesque and the clinical, this duet employs a haunting soundscape and material organs to transform our studio space. Music is by Samon Takahashi. Running time: 20 minutes 

INVOLO 

Choreography: Luigia Riva Dancer: Nina Khoman 

Involo is an epic solo dance piece created for Nina Khoman performed in our theatre space. Redefining the mythology of the swan in ballet, this performance challenges antiquated ideas of womens’ fragility and passivity. Trapped in a white film, pointe shoes attached to hands and feet, Khoman becomes a contemporary swan as she frees herself from this societal cage in order to fly on freer terms. Music is by Sébastien Petit 

Running time: 2O minutes 

INRETITA 

Creators and performers: Luigia Riva and Daniele Derossi 

Inretita is a movement piece staged by Riva and Derossi with eight amateur male performers. Presented as a special promenade performance in the studio, Inretita interrogates the patriarchal desire to control women’s bodies. Riva is bound in red rope by the male performers who constrain her movement and act as puppeteers, as she fights to navigate the space. Music is by Sébastien Petit 

Running time: 19minutes 

Tickets: £20 Concessions 20% Age guidance: 14+ 

Company MEK

Father Politics                  UK PREMIERE                         DANCE

Choreography Muhammed Kaltuk 

Thursday 23 - Friday 24 November, 7.30pm 

Acclaimed Swiss hip-hop and contemporary dance collective Company MEK presents the UK premiere of their explosive piece Father Politics. 

Father Politics unmasks the polarisation of politics, and the manipulation of truth in the media to influence younger generations. Performed by an emerging, multinational, diverse ensemble, this energetic dance piece explores the feeling of powerlessness from a personal perspective. 

Led by Muhammed Kalkut, Company MEK blend innovative hip hop dance with a diverse political voice. This is a special opportunity to experience Switzerland’s next generation of dance.

“Combining powerful, skilful solos with the concentrated energy of perfectly synchronized group elements, the company unmasks patterns of political thought with virtuoso dance.” - BZ Basel 

Tickets: £30, £20 Concessions 20% off 

Ballet Black

Then Or Now                                     FILM / DANCE

Choreography & Direction William Tuckett 

Friday 1 December, 7.30pm 

Celebrate the end of the 2023 Ballet Black: Pioneers season with a ‘made for film’ screening of their latest film Then Or Now. Then or Now is a powerful classical ballet set against the backdrop of Adrienne Rich’s poetry and accompanied by violin.  William Tuckett’s ‘spellbinding’ **** (The Guardian) choreography explores the joys of submitting to the freedom of guilt through a series of movements.

The film screening will feature a post-show discussion with members of the Artistic Team and Ballet Black. 

Tickets: £20 Concessions 20% off

POETRY 

The Coronet presents a series of poetry, and poetry performance events throughout the season. 2 events are part of the 10th Anniversary season of Poetry Club, The Coronet’s contemporary poetry stream, which presents many of the major poets publishes in the UK today. Dead Poets Live, the sell-out performances from the T. S. Eliot Trust (details to be announced), and one-off events include Irene Santori and Yang Lian and YoYo. 

All are welcome to stay for a drink and chat to the poets in the bar, where books will also be available for purchase and signature. 

Poetry Club: Don Paterson & Nick Laird 

Sunday 24 September at 7.30pm 

The fourth event in the 2023 series marking the 10th Anniversary of Poetry Club will be reading by multi award-winning poets, Don Paterson and Nick Laird. 

Don Paterson is the author of numerous works of poetry and non-fiction. His awards include the Whitbread Poetry Prize, the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, the Costa Poetry Award, all three Forward Prizes, and the T.S. Eliot Prize on two occasions. He received the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry in 2009; is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, the English Association and the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and for many years taught at the University of St Andrews, where he is now Emeritus Professor of Poetry. From 1997 to 2022 Paterson was poetry editor at Picador.
"One of the few poets writing today whose work combines postmodern playfulness with a sense of yearning for the transcendental.” - The Independent 

Nick Laird was recently awarded The Forward Prize for best poem for the titular poem of his latest collection, Up Late. His many awards for all five of his published poetry collections including the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature, the Somerset Maugham 

Award, a Guggenheim fellowship and the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize. Feel Free was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize and the Derek Walcott Award. He is the Seamus Heaney Professor of Poetry at Queen’s University, Belfast.
“Laird cracks open the poetry of sensitivity to reveal a raw sense of politics and injustice - Philip Terry, Guardian 

Tickets: £16 Concessions: 20% off 

Yang Lian and YoYo: An Evening Of Poetry 

Sunday 1 October 

Award-winning poets Yang Lian and YoYo present a special evening of poetry reading their respective collections A Tower Built Downwards and One Man’s Decision to Become a Tree.  Praised by Ai WeiWei as “outstanding... rigorous and precise poetry.” These two collections explore ideas of motherland, exile and their personal relationships to China. 

Yang Lian is a multi-award winning Chinese poet who lives in London and Berlin. He published 15 volumes of poetry, including Yi (2002) Where the see Stand Still (1999), Concentric Circles (2005), Riding Pisces (2008), Lee Valley Poems (2009), Narrative Poem (2016), Anniversary Snow (2019) and A Tower Built Downwards (2023). His works have been translated into more than 30 languages. 

YoYo is a fiction writer, painter and a guest professor at Shantou University, Guangdong Province, China. Born in Western China, she was an arts editor in a Chinese Theatre Publishing House before leaving China in 1988. She has since published nine collections of novelettes and one novel. Two of her works have been translated into English: Ghost Tide (2005) and One Man’s Decision to Become a Tree (2023). 

Tickets: £16 Concessions: 20% off 

Poetry Club: Daljit Nagra & Matthew Hollis 

Thursday 19 October, 7:30pm

Poetry Club welcomes award-winning poets Daljit Nagra and Matthew Hollis to the intimate candlelit bar - the fifth instalment in the 10th anniversary 2023 series. 

Daljit Nagra has published four poetry collections with Faber. His most recent collection indiom, will be the Autumn Choice by the Poetry Book Society. Daljit has won the Forward Prize for Best Individual Poem and Best First Book, the South Bank Show Decibel Award and the Cholmondeley Award, and been shortlisted for the Costa Prize and twice for the T. S. Eliot Prize. His poems have appeared in the New Yorker, the L.R.B and the TLS, and his journalism in the FT and the Guardian.
“Nagra would make an excellently provocative laureate” - The Sunday Times 

Matthew Hollis’ first collection Ground Water was shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award, the Whitbread Prize for Poetry and the Forward Prize for Best First Collection. Now All Roads Lead to France: The Last Years of Edward Thomas won the Costa Biography Award and the H. W. Fisher Biography Prize and was Sunday Times Biography of the Year. The Waste Land: A Biography of a Poem was published in 2022 and Earth House, a volume of poems, in 2023. 

“He combines worldly wisdom with more detailed, vernacular understanding to produce poems that speak with a sense of purpose and place” - Simon Armitage 

Tickets: £16 Concessions:20% off

Irene Santori
The Book of Liquids           UK PREMIERE                          POETRY / MUSIC

16 November, 7.30pm 

Award-winning poet, translator and essayist Irene Santori presents a special reading of her 2021 collection The Book of Liquids. Accompanied by musician Jacopo Dell’Erba, Santori delivers an illuminating performance of her poetry, exploring a series of imagined childhood memories from modern times back to Paleolithic - a dreamlike diorama of shared experiences through time. 

Poet Santori also manages the Bilingual Series of Poetry Parallela, is the author and host of Radio3-Rai and Swiss Italian radio, and is President of the Vasco Bendini Archive. Her poetic texts are translated into English, Spanish, Portuguese, German and Chinese (translated by Yang Lian). 

Musician, composer and vocalist Dell’Erba studied Jazz Singing in Matera at the E.R. Duni Conservatory and won the Best Vocal Talent scholarship at the Fara Jazz Summer School. His focus is electro-acoustic music, mixing traditional arrangement techniques with electronic programming. He collaborates with several poets in a variety of cross-art performances. 

Tickets: £16 Concessions: 20% off.