Chongqing: 19:30 Saturday 10 October, 19:30 Sunday 11 October, Chongqing Grand Theatre
Kunming: 19:30 Tuesday 13 October, Experimental Theatre of Yunnan Arts University
Chengdu: 19: 30 Thursday 15 October, 19:30 Friday 16 October, Chengdu Jincheng Arts Palace

The China tour by the National Dance Company Wales is primarily funded and organised by the British Council Chongqing with contributions and support from the Chongqing Administration of Culture, Television and Radio, the Welsh Assembly Government and Wales Arts International.  This cutting-edge performance by NDCW is an excellent fit with the British Council's objective to harness the power of contemporary British arts and culture to build relationships of mutual benefit worldwide.  In particular, the performance by NDCW will strengthen the special twinning relationship between Wales and Chongqing and create new opportunities for cultural exchange and cooperation between the two regions.

National Dance Company Wales

The Company was established as Diversions in 1983 by Roy Campbell-Moore and Ann Sholem. It was awarded National status in 1999 and in 2008 was proud to receive a major Arts Council of Wales Beacon Award in recognition of its work as a world-class dance company. In 2004 the Company moved to the Dance House at the Wales Millennium Centre, a world class production facility enabling the company to grow and develop the quality of its work. Earlier this year the Company changed its name to National Dance Company Wales reflecting the excellence, pride and dynamism at the heart of all the Company does.

National Dance Company Wales is an award winning company who tour throughout Wales, the UK and abroad. The Company commissions international choreographers to create work that is both expressive and challenging. They have always had a passion for virtuosity complemented by charismatic theatricality and is committed to promoting programmes which have a wide appeal.

National Dance Company Wales tours a theatrical and adventurous programme of dance throughout Wales and the UK. The Company’s vision has included a programme of participation, professional development and engagement activities including work with schools, colleges and community events.

Hinterland by Roy Campbell-Moore

Hinterland is a 25 minute piece performed by 5 dancers based on the Welsh landscape and inspired by Alun Hoddinott’s Welsh Dances Suites. Company founder Roy Campbell-Moore’s visually stunning Hinterland is a poetic work set to the music of the last Alun Hoddinott. This elegant dance is both joyful and poignant, embracing and evoking the composer’s delight in music that is full of light, landscape and lyricism.

“I have created a work with five dancers who represent different characters interacting like a community of people. There is young romance, corrosive anxiety, playfulness, humour and high drama between the characters as they celebrate their uniqueness as human beings. Alun Hoddinott’s remarkable Welsh Dances Suites are celebratory; life at its biggest, based on the feel for the land, people and songs of a Wales that he loved so much. I also wanted the dance to take place within a set of colour fields that gave insight into the background hues and shape of a poetic rolling landscape, breathing a seductive glow like the procession of the seasons.”
---- Roy Campbell-Moore, Co-Founder and Choreographer of NDCW

Behind the Mask by Andonis Foniadakis

Greek choreographer Andonis Foniadakis’ debut with the Company will engulf the stage. He has specially created an inspiring new work that focuses on his hallmark technical virtuosity and fluidity. This highly-visual work is set to an original score by Julien Tarride and will have audiences mesmerised with the seamless sophistication of the gripping work.

“The inspiration for the piece is more to do with a state of mind, related to identity, how we protect it, what we revealed and what do we want to show to society. I am trying in a sense to combine physical dance work and more theatrical elements, such as a mask, and see how the audience deals with this. It isn’t classical dance nor strictly abstract as there is a strange relationship between the characters, a story but one that is not precise.

“My work is emotional rather than intellectual; it does not have a story board start, middle and end. So I want the audience to sit down and try to feel and recall and relate to emotions that will be provoked by what they see and hear.

“Julien Tarride and I work in a very organic way with the choreography and the music – what people will see is two people working together to create a dreamy universe, a sensation of the universe that, in a theatrical sense, is beyond purely real time and physical space.”
--- Andonis Foniadakis