Modern Milestones – a multi-anniversary celebration from Yorke Dance Project
Yorke Dance Project‘s latest programme, Modern Milestones, features world premieres by 79-year-old Christopher Bruce and 32-year-old Liam Francis, the UK premiere of Bella Lewitzky’s 1970 work Kinaesonata, Martha Graham’s 1937 solo Deep Song and Robert Cohan’s 2015 work, Lacrymosa.
The programme celebrates many anniversaries: 100 years of Martha Graham Dance Company, the centenary of Robert Cohan’s birth, the 80th birthday of Christopher Bruce in November, 60 years of Lewitzky Dance Company, and Liam Francis’s first year as Yorke Dance Project’s associate artist.
Christopher Bruce’s Troubadour is the choreographer’s first new work in over a decade. Bruce is known for a wide range of work, often choosing unconventional music accompaniment, such as The Rolling Stones when he created his acclaimed Rooster. On this occasion, he has choreographed a dance to six tracks from Leonard Cohen’s live performance at the 02 Arena in 2008.
A dancer with Lost Dog and former member of Rambert and ZooNation, Liam Francis’ passion for play and his embodied knowledge of hip-hop and contemporary dance are the drivers for his creative practice. His new work CAST |x| is set to Jethro Cooke’s minimalist score composed of fragmented cinematic voice samples and thrumming textures. Four figures are caught mid-action… accusation hangs in the air. What follows is a “gradually escalating knot of narrative and emotional tension, fractured memory, moral ambiguity and the stories we tell to escape blame”.
Bella Lewitzky’s 1970 work Kinaesonata is a kinetic response to Argentine composer Alberto Ginastera’s Piano Sonata No. 1, Op 22. Fast, energetic, intricate and colourful, the work is packed with repetition, lifts, symmetry, and mirrored movement, its eight dancers in constant motion from beginning to end. Kinaesonata was revived by Benjamin Millepied‘s LA Dance Project in 2019.
Set to music by Henry Cowell, Martha Graham’s 1937 solo Deep Song is a visceral reaction to the Spanish Civil War. The work is a cry of deep anguish – its contractions, swirls, crawls and falls are powerful physical representations of human experiences in war. The dance disappeared from the Graham company repertoire in the 40s and wasn’t revived again until 1989.
Robert Cohan’s Lacrymosa was created on Yorke Dance Project in 2015, entering the company’s repertoire the following year. A duet set to music of the same name by Dmitri Yanov-Yanovsky, Lacrymosa explores both the loss and return of a loved one, moving from initial sorrow to the transforming power of reunion. Cohan has said that his starting point was Jesus returning home to Mary Magdalen.
Under the artistic directorship of Yolande Yorke-Edgell, Yorke Dance Project has carved a distinctive place in the UK dance landscape. Simultaneously rooted in tradition while looking to the future, her company presents immaculately reconstructed classics of contemporary dance and ballet alongside premieres of new work by both established and emerging choreographers.
The Yorke Dance Project dancers are: Abigail Attard-Montalto, Elly Braund, Jasmine Daniels, Eleanor Ferguson, Carina Howard, Dominic Rocca, Pierre Tappon, Amy Thake, Francis Thomas and Harry Wilson. There will be guest appearances from Jonathan Goddard and Eileih Muir.
2025
Saturday 15 November at 7.30pm
Stanley and Audrey Burton Theatre, LEEDS
2 St Cecilia St, Leeds LS2 7PA
Box office: 0113 220 8008 / https://northernballet.com/theatre
Friday 28 and Saturday 29 November at 7.30pm
FROME Memorial Theatre
Christchurch Street West, Frome BA11 1EB
Box office: / https://fromememorialtheatre.org.uk/
2026
Monday 19 to Thursday 22 January at 7.30pm
Linbury Theatre, LONDON
Royal Ballet and Opera, Bow Street, London WC2E 9DD
Box office: 020 7304 4000 / https://www.rbo.org.uk/
Further dates are being added.
Graham Spicer, aka ‘Gramilano’, is a writer, director and photographer based in Milan. He was a regular columnist for Opera Now magazine and wrote for the BBC until transferring to Italy. His articles have appeared in various publications from Woman’s Weekly to Gay Times, and he wrote the Danza in Italia column for Dancing Times magazine. Graham was the historical advisor on Codice Carla, the 2023 documentary on Carla Fracci.
Graham also works as a dance photographer, and his photos have appeared in many books, theatre programmes, and magazines, including Dancing Times, Dance Spirit and Ballet2000, as well as all the major Italian newspapers.
He is a member of the Dance Section of The Critics’ Circle.
