REPERTOIRE

White Lies by Botis Seva

“It’s one thing to question your mind; it’s another to question your eyes and ears. But, then again, isn’t it all the same? Our senses just mediocre inputs to our brain? Sure, we rely on them, trust they accurately portray the real world around us, but what if the haunting truth is they can’t? That what we perceive isn’t the real world at all, but just our mind’s best guess? That all we really have is a garbled reality, a truly fuzzy picture we will never make out?” – Elliot Alderson

Acclaimed dance theatre maker Botis Seva draws from his hip-hop background to craft a physical language that is distinctly his own. Set to a pulsating original score by Torben Lars Sylvest, White Lies is full of contrast, unrestrained physical power and poetic delicacy.

White Lies was created in 2019 for the VERVE 2020 tour. Due to Covid-19 the 2020 tour was sadly suspended. We are delighted to be able to present this thrilling work on tour in 2021.

Love to Destroy by Matthew Robinson

We are never still. Our bones reach, our blood streams and our nerves burn. Our body changes, blooms and decays. Love to destroy is about the possibility of letting go, of all we know, and if necessary rejecting who we have been told we are. It is about change, control, saying yes wholeheartedly and saying no firmly. It is a poem, a moment, a series of emotions; a reminder to feel.

Matthew Robinson is a choreographer, dancer, artist and has been Artistic Director of VERVE since Autumn 2016.

For many years Matthew danced for Scottish Dance Theatre, performing work by a diverse range of international choreographers, including Sharon Eyal, Damien Jalet, Hofesh Shechter, and Victor Quijada.

In 2013 he was invited to become Rehearsal Director for SDT, supporting the dancers and guest artists in creative process, and the company on multiple international tours.

Matthew creates his own work in independent, collaborative and commissioned contexts. As an artist he seeks to translate contradictions and complex feelings, through boldly physical, emotionally layered choreographic construction. His previous work for VERVE, NEVERSINK, toured Europe in 2018.

Matthew is a graduate of London Contemporary Dance School.

The Quiet Ones by Caroline Finn

A glimpse at the synchronicity of a community savouring the warm nostalgia of yesterday but craving a brighter tomorrow. As their voices gather and diverge in fleeting moments of intimacy, compliance, repression and liberation, we can ask ourselves who those quiet ones really are and what do they want to tell us?

Caroline Finn trained at The Arts Educational School, Tring and the The Juilliard School, New York. As a dancer, she worked with Ballet Theatre Munich, Ballet Preljocaj and Compagnie Carolyn Carlson. She has choreographed for many international companies, festivals and training programmes, including Tanz Luzerner Theatre, Phoenix Dance Theatre and the National Ballet of Chile.

Awards include the Production Prize at the Copenhagen International Choreography Competition (2010), the Matthew Bourne New Adventures Choreographer Award (2013) and Wales Theatre Award for Best Female Artist for her choreography of FOLK (2016).

Caroline was Artistic Director of NDCWales from 2015-2018 and was the company’s Resident Choreography until 2021. She is a member of Tanztendenz e.V. and currently based in Zurich.

Private Little Films by Barnaby Booth

A dance about the people dancing it, and the conversations they have or haven’t had.

“When we die, all our memories die with us; I thought of that at 4am. I wrote it down…all the private liAle films. The documentation of a life. Just gone.
Puff!” – From Whenever You’re Ready by Craig Ainsley

For my grandmother, Cynthia Booth (1929 – 2021)

Barnaby Booth is an award winning choreographer and lighting designer. A graduate of the Northern School of Contemporary Dance and the Salzburg Experimental Academy of Dance (SEAD), his career highlights include working for English National Opera at the London Coliseum, and winning a number of prizes for his solo work, We Do This. We Don’t Talk. Alongside independent projects, he has made work for TRAK Dance Ensemble (Austria), Los Little Guys (US/Mexico), Dantzaz (Spain), Roehampton University, NSCD (UK), Bodhi Project (Austria) and Encuentros Mutantes Festival (Mexico) .

Lighting design collaborations include Carlos Pons Guerra, Sita Ostheimer, Mavin Khoo, Wilhelmina Ojanen, Northern Ballet, Kristin Kelly Abbott, Unholy Mess Theatre Company, Northern Rascals, Ieva Kuniskis, Tora Hed, Mala Kline and Lewys Holt.