National Dance Company Wales

Frontiers | Gorwelion

Autumn 2024

Access the digital programme here

Escape to the edge of your seat for a double bill of National Dance Company Wales’ signature blend of brilliantly crafted, life-affirming dance.

Touring Autumn 2024 across the UK

Supported by:
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two dancers in pinstripe trousers under a red light

AUGUST by Matthew William Robinson

As the sun set everything changed.

AUGUST is inspired by sunsets - a space between restraint and recklessness. AUGUST is about endings and saying goodbye. About the changes that fling us together and tear us apart.

Bathed in the fading colours of dusk and the neon accents of night, AUGUST navigates a sensual landscape shifting between the perilous and the beautiful.

An artistic collaboration between choreographer Matthew William Robinson, composer Torben Sylvest, designer George Hampton Wale, lighting designer Emma Jones and the artists of National Dance Company Wales.

Learn more about AUGUST Here

dancers in white costumes printed with 2d rendered outfits and strange masks that distort their features

Skinners by Melanie Lane

We live in a digital age. We use filters to blur reality and avatars that disguise our identities. We talk to AI, and it talks back to us. We are teetering on the edge of a thrilling and terrifying future where the human body glitches between flesh and illusion, fact and fiction.

Beyond the fantasies that technology makes possible, our humanity remains. How do we return to the physical world, and to the skin we are living in?

Skinners by Melanie Lane, an Australian choreographer of European and Javanese heritage, features new music from composer Yamila Rios, costume designs by Don Aretino and light from Welsh designer Ceri James.

Learn more about Skinners here

Creative Team

Choreographer: Matthew William Robinson
Composer: Torben Sylvest
Costume Designer: George Hampton-Wale
Lighting Designer: Emma Jones

Created with Dancers: Alys Davies, Samuel Gilovitz, Jill Goh, Niamh Keeling, Mario Manara, Edward Myhill, Tom O’Gorman and Faye Tan

Matthew William Robinson
Matthew Robinson (he/him) is a practicing artist currently based in the United Kingdom.

Collaborating internationally in a variety of contexts as dancer, choreographer, facilitator, rehearsal director and artistic director, he is currently Artistic Director of National Dance Company Wales.

His choreographic work has moved extensively across the United Kingdom and internationally to venues and festivals in Europe and beyond. Built from the body, the work seeks to translate contradictions and complex emotions, through highly physical choreographic construction. Collaborating across forms, Matthew is engaged in ongoing and emerging collaborative partnerships in the fields of sound, fashion, theatre and technology.

Choreographer

Matthew William Robinson

Matthew is a white man with short hair, he is wearing a brown grey t shirt

Creative Team

Choreographer: Melanie Lane
Composer: Yamila Rios
Costume Design: Don Aretino
Lighting Design: Ceri James

Melanie Lane
Melanie Lane is an Australian choreographer and performer of Javanese/European cultural heritage. She works across visual arts, theatre, music and film. Her work interrogates physical and cultural histories to explore current social mythologies and extrapolates these into surreal futures that are confounded, broken and reconfigured. These independent works have been presented globally at festivals and theatres in Europe, Indonesia, United States and Australia. Drawing on her European and Indonesian heritage Lane moves between cultural landscapes and influences. Melanie engages regularly across projects in Indonesia as choreographer, collaborator, performer and mentor.

Photo: Barbara Dietl