Rooms with a voyeuristic view at Hawkins’ HOTEL

05 Sep 2011 in Show Press Releases
Related Shows: Hotel

Expect dance with a fanciful twist when Mark Hawkins’ acclaimed new work HOTEL checks in for a two-week run at the Market Theatre from 27 September to 9 October 2011.

Earlier this year, audiences at the 2011 Dance Umbrella witnessed the premiere of this genre-crossing piece, which was commissioned for the festival by Moving into Dance Mophatong (MIDM).

Hawkins has since further shaped and developed HOTEL into a more fully rounded state-of-the-art multimedia production for the forthcoming season, which is co-presented by the Market Theatre and MIDM.

The production features some of MIDM’s most talented dancers, complete with high-tech audiovisuals (courtesy of PENMAC), music composed by Philip Miller, set design by Andrew Botha, lighting design by Nic Michaletos and costumes by Robyn De Klerk.

Hawkins, a respected and decorated choreographer known for his boundary-busting work with the Fantastic Flying Fish Dance Company, has created an exciting new multimedia piece that fuses an array of dance styles with visual and theatrical storytelling.

“It’s been about 10 years since Flying Fish was last at the Market Theatre, and I’m really looking forward to returning with a full-scale work,” says Hawkins. “HOTEL combines dance theatre and visual theatre. The starting point of my work is not about choreography or finding a new style or step; it’s about creating a picture.”

This he certainly achieves in the hour-long HOTEL, an intriguing, atmospheric and often amusing work that draws inspiration from French poet Guillaume Apollinaire’s poem of the same name.

It is crafted around the notion of a hotel with different rooms housing different stories: “Life always happens in compartments and usually the true stories of life take place behind closed doors,” says Hawkins. “People, thoughts and ideas check in and check out, and our mind becomes our hotel – a place shrouded in secrecy and anonymity.”

This engaging work mashes up styles, influences and eras with a theatrical flourish, and should appeal to anyone who values innovative, genre-crossing entertainment.
MIDM is funded for HOTEL by the National Lottery Distribution Fund, the National Arts Council of South Africa and Rand Merchant Bank.

The production runs at the Market Theatre’s Main Theatre in Newtown, Johannesburg, from 27 September to 9 October 2011, with previews on 24 and 25 September 2011. Book at Computicket, or visit www.midance.co.za or www.markettheatre.co.za

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