A 21 day festival of fresh, exciting and wonderfully diverse dance and performance pieces curated by veteran dance/theatre writer Donald Hutera and featuring over four dozen individuals and companies.

Read our interview with Donald Huetra here - who tells us about the season.

GOlive is an exciting and ambitious new festival with an emphasis on risk, intimacy and play. The diversity of the programme will ensure a fresh and wonderfully eclectic experience each evening.

Donald Hutera is a veteran arts journalist whose writing has appeared in The Times, Time Out, Dance Europe and many other publications and websites world-wide. 'For me one of the most enticing things about the festival is the chance it gives a range of gifted people - both recognised and emerging, youthful and mature - to show what they can do up-close and outside of normal dance-based channels.' 

Programme:

Sunday 7 September

Debbie Lee-Anthony: A dancer and choreographer who trained at The Place, Debbie Lee-Anthony is a senior lecturer at the University of Winchester.  Her current focus is solo autobiographical performance.  Taking notions of niceness as a theme, ‘A nice little project’ is a series of intimate danced and spoken vignettes designed to engage, provoke and entertain.

Lorna V: Tango Journeys by London-based journalist and playwright Lorna V (shortlisted for the Verity Bargate new writing award) is a series of moving, sometimes comic monologues that look at life via the seductive and socially complex world of tango. Tonight you’ll meet both Denise ('Nobody wants to dance with me’) and Kirsty aka Kissy ('Invisible? Me? Hello!’)

Tuesday 9 and Wednesday 10 September

Marina Collard: Marina Collard’s long-term creative relationship with film-maker Tom Paine spans more than ten years. She’s recently been performing solo to his projections. Their lucid yet mysteriously beautiful collaboration in the inaugural GOlive so bowled them over that they've invited Marina back to share a work-in-progress called ‘And so it goes on.’

Debbie Lee-Anthony - (See 7 September)

Lorna V: - (See 7 September). On 9 September Kirsty aka Kissy ('Invisible? Me? Hello!’) returns to GOlive while Sept 10 sees the arrival of Aliki Mbakoyianni (‘Because tango is Greek!’).

Benjamin Shepherd: ‘RE:redrum’ is a dark, potentially dangerous solo by Benjamin Taylor-Shepherd (of  Crimson & The Rovers). ‘I saw six eyes glistening. I felt you calling me in the gloom. I stole a flower…’

Saturday 13 September

Sarah Kent: Former Time Out visual arts critic turned kick-ass performer (and GOlive mainstay) Sarah Kent presents her considered response to the challenge of creating a short solo entitled ‘The Sprite of Ring.’

Katia Lom: Visual artist, choreographer, dog-lover and cake-maker Katia Lom likewise responds to the challenge of co-devising her take on ‘The Sprite of Ring.’

Lorna V: - (See 7 September).  Tonight sees the return of that irrepressible international sensation Aliki Mbakoyianni (‘Because tango is Greek!’).

Benjamin Shepherd and Katie Webster: ‘War Room’ is a work-in-progress being created especially for GOlive. ‘As two parallels that collide through chemical reactions in our chests, the alarm bells rang tirelessly through systematic sleepless nights. The triggers came, then left, came again and defined our lives…’

Angela Woodhouse and Vanio Papadelli: Angela Woodhouse’s current artistic concerns focus on intimacy and the visibility of dancing within the context of installation formats. ‘In Attendance,’ her subtly affecting collaboration with performer Vanio Papadelli, comes to Kentish Town for further development after premiering as a work-in-progress at Chelsea Arts Collective (CAC) in May.

Sunday 14 September

Robert Hesp and Miau Vartiainen: ‘Make Me Wet’ is a body-based,  ideas-driven exploration of water, disposable culture and human interaction from a fresh-faced pair of performance artists hailing, respectively, from Leeds and Finland.

Sarah Kent: - (See 13 September).

Katia Lom: - (See 13 September).

Angela Woodhouse and Vanio Papadelli: - (See 13 September).

Hanna Wroblewski: Hanna Wroblewski’s work focuses on the transformation of the body as a tool for communication and exists on the verge of the surreal. Her compelling solo ‘Monster’, which is being adapted for this edition of GOlive, uses flesh (and fabric) to discover what remains beyond words.

Monday 15 September

Lorna V: - (See 7 September). Tonight you’ll be with all three of the characters inhabiting this work-in-progress one-woman show to date:  Denise ('Nobody wants to dance with me’), Kirsty aka Kissy ('Invisible? Me? Hello!’) and Aliki Mbakoyianni (‘Because tango is Greek!’).

Friday 19 September

Florencia Guerberof and Ali Nourbakhsh: Working with the live percussion of Iranian daf player Ali Nourbaksh, and the song ‘As Nazarene women crossed the meadow’ by Palestinian singer Reem Kelani, cross-disciplinary and butoh-savvy Argentinean soloist Florencia Grueberof (Asian Performing Arts UK) reworks her arresting ‘Thunder comes rushing forth from the earth again’.

Jennifer Jackson: Jennifer Jackson of BIG Ballets is a performer, teacher and choreographer who researches, writes and dances about the experience and creative possibilities of dancing in and around a ballet frame. Her solo improvisation ‘Making Room’ asks what it means to be both a feminist and lover of classical dance. And what’s 'mature' dance anyway?

Sarah Kent: Visual arts crit turned fearlessly frank and funny soloist Sarah Kent aka Degenerate 15 lays herself on the line in a defiant piece of action-theatre called ‘No Holds Barred'.

Mamoru Iriguchi: The designer/performer Mamoru Iriguchi likes using lo-fi, DIY technology to blur actual and virtual realities, usually with an inventively droll sense of humour. For this edition of GOlive he’ll be testing out nascent ideas, asking what’s live and what if anything is eternally fixed…

Saturday 20 September

Sarah Kent and Jan Lee: For ‘With Bells On’ GOlive favourite Sarah Kent teams up with musician/dancer Jan Lee for a short and surprising one-off that might well have legs.

Jennifer Jackson: - (See 19 September).

Nuno Silva and Sabio Janiak: Multi-talented Nuno Silva (singer, dancer, actor and the fulcrum of Nu Music and Dance) and multi-instrumentalist/composer Sabio Janiak develop further the fusion of contemporary dance, fado and electronic and live music first unveiled at GOlive 2013.

Paul Sadot and Lisa Rowley: New Manoeuvres’ Paul Sadot and Lisa Rowley join forces for ‘Not Waving’, a work-in-progress looking at the close relationship between choreography and physical / psychological rituals, trauma and obsessions, with Beckett, Wermonster and Richter inspiring the happy day.

Sunday 21 September

Peta Lily: ‘The Porter’s Daughter’ is a risky, atmospheric script read-through by author Peta Lily, a highly physical performer and theatre-maker well-known for her astute and funny solo shows. At the special request of GOlive she and director Di Sherlock will be turning this below-stairs, woman’s-eye view of ‘Macbeth’ – originally a juicy seven-hander – into an enjoyably daring solo experiment. Think film pitch plus!

Vanio Papadelli and Tania Batzoglou: Conceived as an unconventional mix of spoken original text, intense physicality and video, ‘Candid’ (which is being developed especially for GOlive) explores the themes of sisterhood and competition among women. It may also contain nudity. 

Paul Sadot and Lisa Rowley: - (See 20 September).

Nuno Silva and Sabio Janiak: - (See 20 September).

More dates to be added...

Photo credits: (immediate above) Elizabeth-McAuley, (Main photo) Maria Guerberof