THE PLACE ANNOUNCES ITS 2026 AUTUMN/ WINTER SEASON

The Place, leading centre for dance performance and home to London Contemporary Dance School (LCDS), announces its Autumn/Winter 2026 season. Among highlights are new works from returning audience favourites – rising stars and acclaimed companies alike – including Ekleido, Seke Chimutengwende, Malik Nashad Sharpe and Scottish Dance Theatre. New ideas and experimentation are championed through two nights of Choreodrome: making progress, while emerging talent takes centre stage in Fresh and The Peter Farley Collaborations. The season concludes with a festive treat for young audiences and their families: Starchitects Save Santa! by dance-circus company Motionhouse.

“We work with many brilliant people and organisations to bring audiences a programme of dance which is full of wonder, wow moments and important ideas, and this autumn is no exception: it’s a pleasure to be working in partnership with Dance Umbrella to co-present four works at The Place, and Cecil Sharpe House, with Aerowaves to bring works from Lebanon/The Netherlands and Slovakia to London, and with ADX to present another programme of exceptional dance from Africa and its diaspora. We also have a new partnership with The Rebellious Bodies festival to showcase the Japanese form of Butoh and look forward to London premieres by artists including Malik Nashad Sharpe, Ekleido and Seke Chimutengwende.”- Christina Elliot, Head of Programming and Producing

Highlights of the summer 2026 season include:

• Ekleido presents Femina, co-produced by The Place – a highly anticipated new work celebrating femininity through the company’s signature fusion of contemporary, club and street dance styles, set to an original electronic score by Floating Points, Ela Minus and Stella Mozgawa. (5, 6 & 7 OCT)
• Scottish Dance Theatre comes to The Place with the London premiere of a double bill featuring Rotten Workby Emilie Leriche and The Game of Life by Edouard Hue. (23 & 24 OCT)
• The UK premiere of Hang Time, the latest work by genre-defying choreographer Marikiscrycrycry (Malik Nashad Sharpe) (29, 30 & 31 OCT)
• Rebellious Bodies Festival presents two evenings of butoh, the avant-garde dance form originating in post-war Japan, with a programme featuring the return of the legendary Mitsuyo Uesugi to The Place and a tribute to Kazuo Ohno. (13 & 14 NOV)
• Family festive show Starchitects Save Santa! is brought by renowned dance-circus company Motionhouse, taking audiences on a mission to save Santa in time for Christmas. (16 – 23 DEC)
  

Programme of work this summer at The Place

The season opens with two evenings of Choreodrome: making progress, where six choreographers – Eleanor Sikorski, Annie Hanauer, Oluwatosin Omotosho, Joe Moran, Isaac Ouro-Gnao and Kesha Raithatha – share works in progress developed through The Place’s Choreodrome residency in summer 2026. Audiences can expect bold and exhilarating experiments as these artists test new ideas in our intimate studio theatre. Performances will be followed by a facilitated feedback session with the choreographers and dancers.

Choreodrome is The Place’s flagship residency and commissioning programme, providing dance makers with the space, time and resources to develop new work. (8 & 9 SEPT)

Award-winning performance maker Tom Cassani, previously selected as an Aerowaves Artist in 2024, explores the art of sword swallowing in Inside, using the practice as a lens through which to explore the hidden labour behind an apparently life-threatening act. Inside is a meditation on the body’s potential, an exploration of risk, and a reimagining of what it means to embody magic and danger in contemporary performance. (15 SEPT)

Further lifting the curtain on the art of illusion is The Dirty Work, a new solo performance by Jo Bannon, revealing the truth behind the tricks of the trade – a white rabbit, a magic wand, a puff of smoke – as well as her lived experience of visual impairment. Bannon exposes the invisible labour that shapes how we navigate the world, the ‘dirty work’ that goes unnoticed on stage and in everyday life, creating not just a magic show, but a poignant meditation on visibility and disability. (10 NOV)

This year’s edition of Frame Rush – the annual screendance festival curated by MA Screendance students at London Contemporary Dance School – celebrates the global diversity of dance, filmmaking and bold artistic experimentation. Bringing together emerging and international artists, the festival comprises two screenings. The Graduate Screening presents works by the MA Screendance 2025 cohort, offering insight into a broad range of approaches to film structure within contemporary screendance practice. The International Screening showcases works by artists from around the world that explore ritual in personal and cultural contexts. Both screenings will be followed by a Q&A with participating filmmakers. Designed for specialist and curious audiences alike, Frame Rush aims to foster dialogue and discovery.

IHOPEIWILL – winner of Slovakia’s DOSKY Award for Outstanding Achievement in Dance Theatre – is presented at The Place as part of Aerowaves by the interdisciplinary female collective threeiscompany and dancer and choreographer Jaro Viňarský. The work reflects on our shared future amid escalating political tensions and climate challenges, blending physical performance, sound design and visual installation to convey a sense of hope amidst a prevailing atmosphere of fear and uncertainty. The inspiration for the piece emerged from conversations around family dynamics, personal relationships and connections across generations. IHOPEIWILL becomes an artistic reflection on the direction of contemporary society and our responsibility to future generations. (22 SEPT)

Another Aerowaves artist, Charlie Khalil Prince, joins Amadou Diop for a double bill featuring the UK premieres of their solo works.

Created in response to the ongoing crises in his native Lebanon, the body symphonic sees Charlie Khalil Prince explore the body as a means of resisting erasure and asserting presence. Joined on stage by virtuoso percussionist Joss Turnbull, the pair blur the line between dance and music performance – rhythms give rise to movement just as gestures inspire sound, asserting the agency of the body in the face of subjugation. Prince draws on contemporary and folk dance traditions, allowing them to fracture and reconfigure into new mythologies.

Black Sheep explores the tension between individuality and conformity, told through Senegalese dancer Amadou Diop's signature blend of contemporary dance and hip-hop, informed by his training at École des Sables. Diop questions the place of those who refuse to follow the herd, risking exclusion in asserting their freedom to be, and reclaiming pain as a vital force. (30 SEPT)

Following the popular It Begins in Darkness, LCDS alum Seke Chimutengwende returns with The Last Quartet, which takes inspiration from T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets to imagine a ‘last work’ or a ‘last attempt’ at choreography. Four dancers take to the stage to work things out through movement – how to begin, how to connect, how to change and how to end – accompanied by an elegiac electro-acoustic score by composer Jamie McCarthy. (24, 25 & 26 SEPT)

A Place to Dance brings together Brazilian choreographer Poliana Lima and British flamenco dance artist Yinka Esi Graves in an exploration of their diverse cultural heritages, creating an encounter that celebrates the body as communal, porous and thrillingly alive. Performed in the round, and featuring music by DJ Oumoukala, A Place to Dance dissolves the boundaries between audience and performer, evoking a shared space where watching becomes an act of presence and dancing a call for belonging. (9 & 10 OCT)

Anatomy of Survival returns to The Place fresh from its successful run at Edinburgh Fringe. It all starts with a woman walking into a café. She orders a coffee. The barista doesn’t understand her request. The woman loses her sh*t. Chaos reigns.

This offbeat collaboration between BAFTA-winning playwright Vivienne Franzmann and choreographer and psychotherapist Frauke Requardt brings together 22 very different eyewitness accounts of one everyday altercation to reveal how our nervous systems are still wired for the Stone Age. Performed by two dancers, an actor, a drummer and one bear, Anatomy of Survival is a show for every nervous system in the auditorium, inviting audiences to tune into the rise and fall of their own. (13 OCT)

Presented at Cecil Sharp House, not for glory sees Jack Anderson and Charlotte McLean join forces with composer Malin Lewis to bring together Highland dance, Irish dance and live piping in a dance-theatre gig that is as thrillingly physical as it is emotionally charged. Drawing on the traditions they grew up with, the performers interrogate their cultural inheritance through movement and music, navigating pride and shame, belonging and exclusion, with breathtaking skill. It’s bodies, bagpipes and brutality. It’s kilts, queerness and ceremonial violence. Back beats collide with high cuts, striking into a battering, flinging skirl. Rebellious, funny and fiercely alive, not for glory makes a powerful case for reclaiming what we inherit on our own terms. (13 – 14 OCT)

The Afro Dance Xplosion festival celebrates dance forms from Africa and its Diaspora, bringing together the best of homegrown and international artists. Afro Dance Xplosion 2026: Transcen-dance will welcome a range of exciting companies including: Ballet National de Cote d'Ivoire - Directeur General Georges Momboye, Roots and More, BlakeArts, Artistry Youth Dance and Impact Youth. (16 OCT)

Celebrated for his immersive and visually striking performances, Dutch artist Arno Schuitemaker brings seven dancers together beneath a single strip of light in After After, imagining what may lie ahead as conventional ideas of progress – founded on endless growth – begin to fray. Claiming the blank canvas of the stage, seven performers redefine ‘the after’ not as a future to wait for, but as something to rehearse together. Set to a pulsating electronic score and transformed by striking lighting, the space evolves around them as small gestures gather momentum, building an atmosphere that is at once intimate and exhilarating. (20 & 21 OCT)

Scottish Dance Theatre – recent winner of the UK Critics' Circle National Dance Award for Best Midscale Company – presents the London premiere of a new programme by established choreographers Emilie Leriche (USA/Sweden) and Edouard Hue (Switzerland).

In Rotten Work, Leriche offers poetic, slow-burning choreography that unfolds through moments of connection and shared endurance, reflecting on collective care and the challenge of moving forward together. By contrast, Hue’s The Game of Life bursts with sensation-driven movement. Inspired by the logic of a puzzle, the piece explores how individuals come together to form a whole without surrendering their uniqueness, suggesting that imperfection may be the very force that keeps a society alive. (23 & 24 OCT)

Presented as part of Dance Umbrella 2026, Eshu at the Crossroads brings together Afro-Cuban choreographer Miguel Altunaga (previously of Rambert, Hofesh Schechter Company, Akram Khan Company) and pioneering puppetry company Theatre-Rites for a vibrant family adventure for ages 5+ inspired by Yorùbá culture, myth and storytelling. Featuring a traveller in search of a road to take, a magical rooster guarding the crossroads and Eshu the trickster spinning chaos and joy at every turn, the production invites audiences into a magical world where every choice can change your path. (27 OCT)

A choreographic meditation on hanging out – hanging in the air, hanging in there, hanging by rope, hanging on to life – Hang Time builds on Marikiscrycrycry’s decade-long practice of exploring marginal perspectives through genre-defying performance. Moving between bouyon and soca, ritual, social gathering and disaster, Hang Time explores suspension as a physical, social, historical and spiritual condition, asking what remains suspended in the air after disappearance. (29, 30 & 31 OCT)

Femina, the highly anticipated new work from award-winning choreographic duo Ekleido(Hannah Ekholm and Faye Stoeser); questions how femininity is perceived, embodied and valued through time. Characterised by Ekleido’s signature fusion of contemporary and club styles, six dancers commune and transcend through an electronic musical landscape. Set to an original score by world-renowned musicians Floating Points (Mercury Prize nominee), Ela Minus and Stella Mozgawa,Femina looks at the spectrum of femininity in a layered, electrifying performance. (5, 6 & 7 OCT)

Rebellious Bodies Festival comes to London for two nights of butoh, the avant-garde dance form born from radical experimentation in post-war Japan, presented through a programme of works performed by five contemporary Japanese dancers. The first night features The Last Two, a duet by MUTSUMINEIRO, returning to the UK following a sell-out performance in 2025; Seiji Tanaka’s UK debut, Pulse of Absence; Makiko Takamatsu’s Naked Rabbit; and A Requiem for Her, which marks the return of the legendary Mitsuyo Uesugi to The Place for the first time in 46 years, having previously performed here alongside Kazuo Ohno. The second night brings all five artists together in Mother Forest, a bold new ensemble work and homage to Ohno. (13 & 14 NOV)

The next generation of talent shines in Fresh, The Place’s annual showcase of dance created with young people for the young at heart. This vibrant evening presents a mixed bill of short performances as professional and youth companies share our stage for the night. The audience experience is raucous and electric, as budding dance enthusiasts rub shoulders with professionals. (21 NOV)

London Contemporary Dance School is delighted to present the culmination of a collaboration with Hofesh Shechter Company: an evening of works from the company's acclaimed repertoire, performed by students on the MA Dance: Performance programme. The performance will begin with a company class on stage, offering audiences an insight into their movement language and daily practice, before continuing with excerpts from Hofesh Shechter’s choreographic repertoire. Matinee performances will be followed by a post-show talk with the students, exploring their experiences of the restaging process. (26 & 27 NOV)

For two decades, The Peter Farley Collaborations Project has been a distinguished fixture in London Contemporary Dance School’s performance calendar. Presented across two evenings, the annual showcase brings together choreographers from the School, designers from Wimbledon College of Arts, UAL, and composers from Guildhall School of Music & Drama. The result is a dynamic mix of creative ideas, ranging from large-scale constructions to inventive use of the theatre space itself, and from live ensembles to electronic scores. Together, the works reflect the rich possibilities of interdisciplinary collaboration from the next generation of creatives. (3 & 4, 10 & 11 DEC)

The season concludes with the festive family show Starchitects Save Santa! by renowned dance-circus company Motionhouse, taking audiences on a thrilling journey to rescue Santa in time for Christmas. Enter a world of boundless childhood imagination, where anything is possible and empty gift boxes transform into rockets launching countless adventures. (16–23 DEC)