Image description: LM TESTO Wet Mess. Credit: Lesley Martin

I love London. That was one of the things that lured me to the Southbank Centre, being able to contribute to its incredible cultural life and even shake it up a little bit. As the largest arts centre in Europe, the Southbank Centre is a creative engine room, and has a civic duty to take risks and do things nobody else could. In just over two years in the role, I’ve been figuring out what our ‘USP’ can be in an already crowded and thriving cultural ecology.

Whilst Theatreland is booming, many a person before me have also commented on how London somehow has a narrower understanding of theatre than some of our European neighbours, and the city often misses out on seeing a lot of avant-garde international work. What I’m particularly interested in is platforming artists who have a completely unique approach to performance and dance, who produce work that really stands out as different from work made here. I hope that in the long run, this is what we become known for more and more, and audiences implicitly trust the curation.

Image description: Lukasz Twarkowski: The Employees. Credit: Natalia Kabanow

A priority for me has been programming a number of groundbreaking artists who haven’t been seen in London before. In the past year, we’ve welcomed Łucasz Twarkowski, Alice Ripoll, Nature Theater of Oklahoma, Carolina Bianchi and Jeremy Nedd, who all have very distinctive visions and approaches to performance. Łucasz was somebody I knew from day one that I had to present, with his production of The Employees (in Jan 2025) based on the novel by Olga Ravn (who is no stranger to the Southbank Centre and speaks in our Purcell Room on 2 Nov). To stage it, we transformed the Queen Elizabeth Hall, inviting audiences to sit on the stage around a glowing 6×6 metre cube in which all the action of the show takes place – it was unlike any theatre I’d seen in London in recent years and, to me, it consolidated the fact that the Southbank Centre exists as a home for artists to be their most adventurous and create extraordinary work- also giving access for UK artists and audiences to see incredible work from around the world.

Image description: Tianzhuo Chen: TRANCE. Credit: Pierre Zylstra

Some of the most exciting and successful projects have been those that use the Southbank Centre’s site in new and unusual ways – a cultural playground of sorts, really creating unforgettable experiences for audiences. With TRANCE by Tianzhuo Chen, (July 2025) the Queen Elizabeth Hall foyer was transformed into what felt like the coolest club in London (the world!?) for a transcendent 12 hours that traversed terrain from heavy metal to ecstatic dance, via a full sized pond accompanied by a giant inflatable tardigrade and climaxing with a sold out 700 capacity audience having a group singalong of Prince’s Purple Rain. It was completely surprising and even subversive in such an esteemed institution, but it also felt like a really natural fit that played to the building’s architecture brilliantly. The project was truly multi-disciplinary. We’re proud to be a multi-artform centre, and really believe that exciting new ideas are often to be found in dialogue and collaboration across artforms. With our new festival powered by orchestral music, Multitudes, we’ve supported new collaborations between orchestras and artists and companies working in other disciplines. The results in its inaugural year in April 2025, were electric: from Circa working with the London Philharmonic Orchestra to choreographer Sasha Waltz working with the London Sinfonietta. These big ticket collaborations are becoming a signature for us, not least Little Simz working with Chineke! Orchestra as part of her headline Meltdown concert.

Image description: Multitudes, Circa x LPO. Credit: Laura Manariti

Most recently, a mega takeover of the entire site including the Royal Festival Hall and Queen Elizabeth Hall buildings in a collaboration between Rambert X (LA) HORDE X Ballet National de Marseille’s We Should Have Never Walked On The Moon (Sep 2025) felt like a watershed moment that epitomised everything we want Southbank Centre to stand for. Audiences were free to roam to discover 30 performances and installations at their own leisure and you probably came across it somewhere on your social media feed – because it was pretty hard to miss! Many artists today are working in new ways that don’t necessarily lend themselves to traditional presentations and we want to support them with this by finding new ways we can use our buildings and thus create new dynamic relationships between audiences and performers.

Image description: We Should Have Never Walked on the Moon, by (LA)HORDE Ballet national de Marseille and Rambert. Credit: Hugo Glendinning.

What I’m now focussing on is how we can further support the increasingly challenging climate for UK based practitioners. With our Associate Artist programme we’re offering significant financial support to six artists to create new projects, across the breadth of our supported artforms – so look out for new work from our associates Ivan Blackstock, Cassie Kinoshi, Love Ssega, Julia Cheng, Max Porter and Conor Mitchell on our stages in upcoming seasons. Our new series KUNSTY (5-8 Nov) is a platform for a new generation of artists making types of work underrepresented within the major institutions in London: live art, cabaret and multidisciplinary work. It’s crucial to me that these artists working at the edges of practice and genre can potentially imagine themselves working in big institutions. Innovations in experimental practice always end up influencing the mainstream (and indeed the underground is also often indebted to more popular forms) and it’s important that they’re given proper platforms. The ecology has seen a real decline in platforms for experimental practice in recent years.

Image description: Harry Clayton Wright Mr Blackpool’s Seaside Spectacular. Credit: Matt Crockett.

This inaugural edition of KUNSTY has a focus on new producing house Metal & Water, showcasing three of their artists: Bullyache, Jenny Moore and Wet Mess. Joining them, we have Harry Clayton-Wright: Mr Blackpool’s Seaside Spectacular and Eric Longa Company’s Cabrolé! reflecting a recent boom in cabaret practice across London. In difficult times audiences will seek out entertainment – but the success of nights across the capital from Miss Cellaneous to Fool’s Moon show that this artform can pack a political punch and be an accessible medium for artists to get their work seen. Of course, I’ve also allowed myself a little artistic licence in the form of an international guest performance from Sydney’s Justin Talplacido Shoulder: ANITO (in another London debut), with a truly mind boggling show involving surreal inflatables – just trust me and book a ticket. Rounding out the year we present EVITA TOO by Sh!t Theatre (9-31 Dec). The duo emerged from London’s queer underground performance scene but really made a name for themselves at the Edinburgh Fringe. After many sellout seasons at Soho Theatre, we’re excited to give them the chance to play to a bigger room.

Image description: Sung Im Her: 1 Degree Celsius. Credit: Asian Cultural Center (ACC)

Looking ahead, we’ve just announced a new wave of shows as part of the 75th anniversary of the Festival of Britain that further cement our programming approach. The Southbank Centre’s 2026 anniversary programme is packed year-round with events that explore the future, celebrate youth culture, embrace arts’ relationship with technology and open up the site as a joyful, welcoming space for everyone.

The UK debut for Stephanie Lake Dance Company sees the Southbank Centre collaborate with The Place and London School of Contemporary Dance to stage COLOSSUS (25-27 June), featuring over 60 dancers making their professional performance debut. It’s brilliantly hypnotic and part of our commitment to showcasing more mainstage work by women choreographers following recent presentations of Robyn Orlin, Holly Blakey, Sasha Waltz, Nadia Beugré and upcoming Sung Im Her: 1 Degree Celsius (6 Nov).

Image description: Danny Boyle, Gareth Pugh and Carson McColl join the Southbank Centre’s Artistic Director Mark Ball to launch the Southbank Centre’s 75th anniversary. Credit: Pete Woodhead (c).

The centrepiece of the anniversary is You Are Here (3 & 4 May) created, directed and designed by Danny Boyle, Gareth Pugh, Carson McColl and Paulette Randall – a spectacular weekend celebrating British youth culture and the impact of its music, fashion and rebellious politics over the past 75 years.

For people who like strange and beautiful theatre I’m thrilled to present the visionary French director Philippe Quesne with his show Farm Fatale (15 & 16 May) that follows a group of rather grotesque looking scarecrows, who all live together on a commune having lost their jobs due to climate change. It’s touching and droll and not like anything anybody is making in the UK. At the core of Philippe’s practice is putting a group of characters in a situation, creating a small society of sorts – and then seeing what plays out.

And of course, there will be more eccentric fun such as This is My Life: Duckie Salutes Shirley Bassey (20 Sep). Celebrating Dame Shirley, from the sausage factories of Splott to the casinos of Monte Carlo, who has the record for the longest Royal Festival Hall residency: 10 nights in 1998!

It feels even more pertinent that we continue to push boundaries in mind of the decline in platforms for experimental practice in recent years; from decreased funding and rising costs making it harder for venues to present international work, recent closure of spaces like the Ugly Duck, and the demise of countless local and national platforms, courses and initiatives for experimental work. So thinking outside the box on how we use the Southbank Centre spaces is not only essential, but also a total joy: the constant reinvention of this (nearly) 75 year old national treasure.

Aaron Wright is Head of Performance & Dance at Southbank Centre.

Find Aaron on Insta @aaronzimbra and LinkedIn.