Sadler's Wells announces premiere of Face in by Candoco Dance Company

Candoco is the company for which choreographers reserve their wildest and often most inventive work – Observer

This spring, Candoco Dance Company will present the London premiere of Face In from multi-award-winning and internationally recognised choreographer Yasmeen Godder. Face In was originally commissioned by Stine Nilsen and Pedro Machado who recently stepped down as Artistic Co-Directors of Candoco.

Yasmeen Godder, the recipient of the Michael Landau Prize and “Bessie” award-winner, creates a wild fictional world, uncomfortably familiar yet strangely distorted. Expressed through striking images interwoven with daring and uninhibited dance work, Face In is set to an urban indie score, and follows Godder’s most recent work Common Emotions (2016), which investigated movement disorders, following a year-long project involving dancers, scientists and people living with Parkinson’s disease.

Candoco Artistic Co-Directors Charlotte Darbyshire and Ben Wright said “We are extremely excited about Face In. Yasmeen has typically created a work that is bold, provocative and deliciously physical. It is a piece that masterfully captures the energy, skill and intimacy of our dancers – it is a gift from the previous Artistic Directors.”

The new work is paired with Hetain Patel’s Let’s Talk About Dis, a playful interrogation of identity that probes the audience to think beyond surface appearances.

Yasmeen Godder was born in Jerusalem in 1973 and moved with her family to New York City in 1984. She studied dance at the LaGuardia High School for Performing Arts, the Martha Graham school, and the Tisch School of the Arts at NYU. To date Godder has created twelve evening-length works, including Hall (2001), Sudden Birds (2002), Two Playful Pink (2003), Strawberry Cream and Gunpowder (2004), I’m Mean, I Am (2006), Singular Sensation (2008), Love Fire (2009), Storm End Come (2011), See Her Change (2013) and Common Emotions (2016). In addition to creating for her company, Godder has been commissioned by the Batsheva Dance Company, Matanicola Dance Company, Theater Freiburg, and more. All of her works have been presented in Israel and at numerous venues throughout the world including: Lincoln Center Festival, Sydney Opera House, Montpellier Danse, Hebbel Am Ufer, The Place and Tokyo Festival, among others.

Godder is the recipient of numerous awards including a 2001 New York Dance and Performance “Bessie” Award and the prestigious Michael Landau Prize for the Performing Arts from the Tel Aviv Municipality. Most recently Godder received the Israeli Ministry of Culture Award for “Best Creation” in 2015 for her work CLIMAX.

Hetain Patel is a celebrated visual artist whose TED talk Who Am I? Think Again, a performative interrogation of identity, inspired by Bruce Lee and performed with Yuyu Rau, has been an internet sensation with over 2 and a half million views. He has completed new commissions for the Tanks at Tate Modern, the Southbank Centre, the Royal Opera House and John Hansard Gallery, Southampton. Hetain’s solo-show American Boy, a personal and humorous take on identity shape-shifting, received popular and critical acclaim, playing sold-out audiences at Sadler’s Wells. Hetain is a New Wave Associate artist at Sadler’s Wells.

Candoco, the leading company of disabled and non-disabled dancers celebrated its 25^th anniversary in 2016 with a programme of performances, special events, participation work and international touring. Founded in 1991 by Celeste Dandeker-Arnold OBE and Adam Benjamin, Candoco quickly grew into the first professional dance company of disabled and non-disabled artists in the UK. In 2018, Ben Wright and Candoco founding member Charlotte Darbyshire join the company as Artistic Co-Directors Stine Nilsen and Pedro Machado step down after a decade.

Nilsen and Machado took Candoco from the Bird’s Nest in Beijing to the Olympic Stadium in London, performing at the handover ceremonies in 2008 and returning, alongside Coldplay, at the Paralympic Closing in 2012 and commissioned works for the company from leading choreographers including Emanuel Gat, Rachid Ouramdane, Wendy Houstoun and Javier de Frutos.

Candoco will also be touring their CounterActs double bill, Let’s Talk About Dis and Beheld, to Winchester Theatre Royal on Tuesday 17^th April.