This annual performance festival is returning to the V&A for the first time since 2019.
And they’re making a right song and dance about it.
Bringing together a mostly free programme of film, photography, talks, workshops, interactive installations and live performance, it’s a celebration of dance and movement that takes place across the museum’s storied gallery spaces themselves.
So while you’re there checking out some gilded medieval paintings or casts of the statue of David, you’ll also be able to see suspended dancers illuminated by artist Sian Fan’s hypnotic digital projections (made by combining botanical patterns from the V&A’s Chinese and British collections); watch pop up performances choreographed in lockdown to the spine-tingling music of Nils Frahm and Ólafur Arnalds; be tracked by movement sensors in immersive digital artwork; join a playful dance parade through the courtyard’s fountain; take in Fubunation’s dance piece about racial displacement; listen to world-renowned choreographer Akram Khan talk about his incredible career to date, or a V&A curator discuss the costume design behind the National Theatre’s production of Follies; learn about dancers & acrobats in Tang Dynasty China, or how to record choreography with Benesh notation; watch Bollywood and Gujarati folk dancing in a grand hall surrounded by Raphael sketches aaand stay after hours at the museum’s Friday Late for yet more performances, installations, and music.
At which point you might just have absorbed enough to dance a little yourself.
NOTE: The V&A Performance Festival takes place 23rd April – 1st May. Many events are free and included with admission to the museum, but to find out more about what’s on, and book tickets, head HERE.
V&A Performance Festival | V&A, Cromwell Road, London SW7 2RL
Love dance? Then you might like to know that Peaky Blinders is being turned into a dance show later this year…