DONUTS

by Extended Play

Three dancers leap up onto a brown leather sofa, smiling big warm smiles at each other, clearly they are close friends. Their outfits are all 90s inspired in shades of orange and red. The background of the image is an orange, textured like paper.

About DONUTS

4 Stars

So much to enjoy and admire about Burkmar’s piece

The Reviews Hub

Three friends are getting ready for a night out. The music is intoxicating, they start to dance. It’s so good, they might stay a little longer…

Inspired by classic sitcoms from the 90s and 00s, follow three close friends as their friendship evolves over time. 'Feelgood & fun' (The Guardian), DONUTS celebrates how music brings friends together, no matter what life throws at them.

Bursting with precision and soul, it is a hypnotic and playful contemporary dance to jazz and funk.

Drawing on his own relationship with music and its influence on his friendships growing up, choreographer Jamaal Burkmar places music at the heart of his creative process. DONUTS is the first, highly anticipated, full length dance piece from the company behind JUKEBOX, the breakthrough Instagram series combining popular music with their distinctive and dynamic style of dance.

About Extended Play

A resident of Leeds, Jamaal Burkmar’s first creation was as a second year student at the Northern School for Contemporary Dance (NSCD) where he created a piece entitled Ocean. The work gained critical acclaim, was performed around the North until it became the first and only undergraduate commissioned to rework the piece for VERVE the postgraduate company at NSCD.

His work is about music, it’s about the world that music creates and the world that our performers inhabit because of that. In 2021 Jamaal became one of 10 new Workplace artists at The Place and has since created and toured Donuts, co-produced by The Place. Jamaal is a Work Place Artist at The Place.

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DONUTSOfficial Trailer

Production Images

  • Three dancers tumble together on a plain white sofa. On the far left, the dancer lies with her torso horizontal on the sofa but with her legs suspended up in the air. The dancer in the centre smiles down at her as she leaps over the back of the sofa. On the left, a third and final dancer is seated with her feet tucked up under her. She is deep in thought, removed from the other two, staring into her hands. The soft red glow of a lamp shade is visible behind them on an otherwise black stage.
  • A dancer stands with one leg on a dark stage, her other in a straight line above her in the splits. Her torso is parallel to the floor, her arms outstretched. Behind her are two other dancers, back lit by a high contrast light, shining through haze.
  • A dancer with short, dark hair and a rust coloured knitted vest sits on a plain white sofa. She holds a plane ticket in her hands and looks thoughtfully off into the distance, as if considering what meaning the ticket has on her current life. Her two friends are perched behind the sofa with their backs to her, not seeing the ticket.
  • A dancer lunges towards the camera and points to a spot on a dark dance floor. On her left, another dancer mirrors her lunch and looks inquisitively at her pointing finger. Behind them both, a third dancer tries to see what they're looking at.

Cast and Creatives

Choreographer: Jamaal Burkmar

Dancers: Isis Clunie, Shannon Dray, Ruby Portus

Lighting: Barnaby Booth

Costumes & Set Design: Rebecca Bevan

Production Manager: Chris Burr

Technical Stage Manager: Vian Curtis

Photography & Videography: Genevieve Reeves

Music: Jameszoo

Co-produced by The Place. Co-commissioned by The Place, DanceXchange, WarwickArtsCentre. Supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts CouncilEngland.