RESOLUTION 26: MANACAN, Shea Sullivan and Jie Gao

Resolution Festival

This image is divided into three parts. On the left, two figures are illuminated by yellow light as one person squats holding another who is upside down, leaning backward and wrapping their thighs around the squatting person. In the centre, close-up of a person’s arms with fingers spread, reaching behind their back while lying face down in a lightly lit dark setting. On the right, a person dressed in white stands in a dim spotlight against a dark background, holding their hands raised to chest level in a gesture, with their face hidden in shadow.

About RESOLUTION 26: MANACAN, Shea Sullivan and Jie Gao

Against a dark background, two figures are illuminated by yellow light as one person squats holding another who is upside down, leaning backward and wrapping their thighs around the squatting person.

The World We Dreamed

A ceremonial duet that weaves together memory, movement, and music to imagine a future rooted in ancestral wisdom. Drawing on earthy rhythms and grounded physicality, the piece presents two performers in a timeless space between what was and what could be.

Their journey moves through rupture and reckoning, ritual and release, toward a vision of unity born not from perfection, but from shared breath and listening. This is not a story of escape into the future, but a return to the body, to the land, to the dream we never stopped carrying.

Through visceral choreography and original sound influenced by their South African upbringings, MANACAN invites audiences to witness the making of a new world — one danced into existence.

About MANACAN

MANACAN is a South African company based in London, led by Ciara Baldwin and Nathan Bartman, who choreograph, compose, perform and tour original productions. Rooted in South African textures, their earthy, visceral practice fuses African, hip-hop and contemporary movement with original vocals and music. They interrogate primal themes, taking performers and audiences to vulnerable, transformative spaces. Their work has won awards in New York and in South Africa. While touring internationally - including South Africa, Botswana, Tanzania, USA, Belgium, Zimbabwe, Senegal, Ireland, Italy and the UK, they deliver workshops for all ages and abilities, challenging participants to exceed perceived limits.

www.manacan.net

cast and creatives

Choreographers, composers and performers: MANACAN - Ciara Baldwin and Nathan Bartman

Close-up of a person’s arms with fingers spread, reaching behind their back while lying face down in a lightly lit dark setting.

Emanations of Disfigurement

A landscape of distortion. A meditation in darkness, the work channels extremes of physical and sonic expression to provoke a visceral response. This body horror-inspired piece draws on lived experience of medical negligence and unspoken mysteries held in physical memory. Set across a backdrop of dense electronics and noise, Emanations of Disfigurement invites the audience into a space of kinesthetic empathy—where themes of pain, anger, and resilience are felt as much as seen and heard.

About Shea Sullivan

Shea Sullivan is a California born, London based choreographer and movement artist. She holds a BA from London Contemporary Dance School, MA from Guildhall School of Music and Drama in Collaborative Theatre Production and Design. Her work has been featured in the UK, France, and United States, with choreographic experience expanding into contemporary circus, opera, and dance.

She creates from ‘the clefted perspective’ - working with polar opposites, contradiction, mystery, and bridging gaps in unlikely places.

cast and creatives

Choreographer: Shea Sullivan

Composer: Efe Yuksel

Cast: Farrah Fawcett, Lilly Schroeder, Tom Oakley, Faye Jones, Tomique Gibson, Lydia Kenny.

Lead images photographed by Rocio Chacon

A person dressed in white stands in a dim spotlight against a dark background, holding their hands raised to chest level in a gesture, with their face hidden in shadow.

Echo Of Me

You will be invited into a world where gloves, shadows, and balloons become metaphors for human contradiction and inner duality.

This performance explores the tension between one’s true self and their mirrored reflection, both emotionally and physically. Through abstract and poetic movement, the performers evoke the feeling of being followed, split, or displaced. A subtle presence lingers behind the screen, creating an atmospheric counterpoint. A pendulum-like movement motif symbolizes our oscillation between choices, identities, and realities.

This piece is not about answers, but about sensation, reflection, and the quiet friction that lives between opposites.

About JIE GAO

Jie Gao is a Chinese choreographer currently pursuing an MFA in Choreography at Roehampton University in London. With a professional background in Chinese and contemporary dance, he began training in 2005 and graduated from Nanjing Universityof the Arts in 2015. In 2017, he founded his own dance company, through which he has directed and choreographed numerous original productions. His works have received multiple national awards in China, including support from the China National Arts Fund for Twelve Seconds (2017). His choreographic practice explores the intersection of physical form, philosophical reflection, and cultural identity. He is currently developing new works in the UK that reflect his evolving artistic voice.

cast and creatives

Choreographer: Jie Gao

Creative Collaborator: Wally Grove

Lighting Designer: Emily Stroud

Composers: Zoe Keating, Laurie Anderson, Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson, María Huld Markan Sigfúsdóttir and Steindór Andersen (Sigur Rós)

Performers: Junzhe Wang, Jingru Yang, Lila Kushner, Zhe Zhang, Sarah Duffin, Elana Skeers, Ximena Zeron, Sylvie Randall, Kaitlin Halushka, Dongli Duan and Jie Gao