On Friday 22 November, we hosted our annual scratch night, No Dress Code.  The event aims to provide a platform for dance artists to share their works in progress…

The 3 programmed dance works were selected through an open call out in early 2024. The final selected pieces included 2 live performances and a performance installation.

The night opened with gut, gut, quiet. The piece, which was created, choreographed and performed by Inari Hulkkonen, describes itself as a performance installation interested in the poetic and the visceral. The audience were free to wander around the space as Inari used movement and projected text, to explore the idea of gut, heart, and brain as the three brains of the body. Inari works as a performer in contemporary dance and visual arts. gut, gut, quiet spoke to her interest in language and poetics and similar to many of her previous works incorporated written text.

Excessive Human Collective, are a dance theatre collective under the Artistic Direction of Imogen Reeve. Imogen uses her work to examine gender, technology and the apocalyptic. This year’s No Dress Code saw her present latest work We Are The World, which takes inspiration from Donna Haraway’s writings on the intersection of information technology and feminist theory. Taking the cyborg as a metaphor for fragmented identities, We Are The World looks at the space between fiction and fact. With stunning performances from Allegra Vistalli, Jorden Brookes and Hannah Durkan We Are The World sparked questions around AI, machine learning and the way new technology blurs the lines between fantasy and social reality.

The final performance of the evening was co-created by Balkan vocalist, choreographer and theatre maker Zoe Katsilerou, poet-dancer Izzy Britain and four dancers/musicians, Bobak Champion, Alex McCabe, Aine Reynolds and Tanya Richam-Odoi. Voices explores traditions of Balkan polyphonic songs and contemporary dance-theatre.

Choreographer, Zoe introduced the work with an invitation for the audience to sit around the stage and join her in a round building layers of vocals between audience and performers. The three performers playfully layered vocals, song, poetry and choreography using movements that uncovered the hidden sounds and songs that live in and come from the body.

“Fantastic atmosphere and sold-out buzz in the building – the work was varied with each piece being really accomplished in its artistic identity” 

“I really appreciate the platform for diverse approaches to creation and performance, and artists having the space to explore this. I think it’s fantastic that an event like this exists” -Audience Feedback

The night concluded with an invitation to the audience to feedback on each work to contribute to each artist’s development process.

If you are interested to present a work-in-progress at No Dress Code 2025 sign up to our Artist News to be the first to hear when the call out is announced in Spring 2025.

Images: David Lindsay