Leading dance theatre company balletLORENT makes their first visit to Wales with new fairytale production Snow White at Pontio
balletLORENT are making their first visit to Wales this November, bringing their latest dance theatre fairytale production, Snow White, to Theatr Bryn Terfel in Pontio, Bangor’s new Arts and Innovation Centre, on 11th-12th November.
balletLORENT’s 11 professional dancers will be joined by a cast of 12 local children, aged 6-9 years old.
Choreographed and directed by balletLORENT’s Artistic Director Liv Lorent MBE and retold by Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy, Snow White is the second of the company’s trilogy of fairytale productions after the immense success of the company’s version of Rapunzel.
“We have found so much to love in the story of Snow White. It is full of darkness and light, like the very best fairytales often are,” explains Liv Lorent.
Liv Lorent has been reunited with the team of world renowned collaborators who created Rapunzel: Dame Carol Ann Duffy (Whitbread, T.S. Eliot and Pinter Prize winner); 5 time BAFTA nominated composer Murray Gold (Doctor Who); set designer Phil Eddolls (joint TMA award winner for Improbable’s The Hanging Man); OBIE and Outer Critics Circle award-winning lighting designer Malcolm Rippeth; and the Royal Northern Sinfonia, the UK’s only full-time chamber orchestra.
“It’s a joy and a thrill to be collaborating once again with Liv Lorent and her creative team and to be bringing to life another seminal fairytale to family audiences who love dance or who have yet to discover it.” Said Carol Ann Duffy, Scenario Writer (Poet Laureate).
balletLORENT welcomes three new collaborators to the artistic team for Snow White: Olivier Award-winning actress Lindsay Duncan (Narrator), costume illustrator for HBO’s Game of Thrones Libby Everall (Costume Designer) and renowned Welsh soprano Elin Manahan Thomas, who performed at the Paralympics Opening Ceremony in London, 2012.
The company and Pontio’s arts development team held a workshop at Bangor’s Ysgol Glancegin and open auditions at Pontio to find the young cast, which includes 5 boys and 7 girls - pupils from Ysgol Glancegin, Bangor Ysgol Gynradd Llanfairpwll, Ysgol Bryngwran, Ysgol Gynradd Bodedern and Ysgol Llandygai Bangor.
“The age range we have worked with in this project is a profoundly important key formative stage in a child’s development, because their sense of self-awareness, empowerment and movement is still developing. At this age, they often have innate talent, a lack of self-consciousness, physical beauty in movement, and an urgency for self-expression which can be captured and channeled to great effect through projects like ours, “ explains Liv Lorent.
Snow White premiered at Northern Stage, Newcastle and has toured across the UK the theatres including Festival Theatre Edinburgh and The Lowry.
Snow White is co-produced by Northern Stage and commissioned by Sadler’s Wells.
Videos of some of the young cast describing their favourite fairytale characters and ask the magic mirror a special question here: https://www.facebook.com/balletlorent/posts/10154584255639521
Snow White
balletLORENT
Theatr Bryn Terfel, Pontio, Bangor
Friday 11 November 7pm
Saturday, 12 November 3pm
£15/£13/£10 students and under 18s
Family Ticket (4 people at least one under 18) £45
Age guidance: 7+
Tickets from www.pontio.co.uk or 01248 38 28 28 or call in at the centre.
Publication date: 2 October 2016