Five stellar artists collaborate to create SUB:VERSION and SURGE

Meet the artists that collaborated to create the upcoming dance double-bill SUB:VERSION and SURGE, presented by Tom Dale Company and Absolutely Cultured. Showing at Hull Truck Theatre on 18 April.

Tom Dale won the award for Outstanding Achievement in Choreography while a student at Trinity Laban. He set up Tom Dale Company soon after graduating to create work in collaboration with skilled practitioners in the fields of dance, music, art and design.  The company’s touring work includes I Infinite (2011/ 2018) an immersive dance/digital installation, and stage pieces Rise (2007), Refugees of the Septic Heart (2013), Step Sonic (2019) and Digitopia, which won the award for Outstanding Production at the UK’s Theatre and Technology Awards 2017.  Tom choreographs all TDC’s work.

Tom’s many commissions include the National Lottery Award finalist piece Dark Clouds are Smouldering into Red;  Subterrania (2010) part of (In the Dust) for 2Faced Dance Company, and Dance Please (2012) produced by TPO/Crying Out Loud/Theatre Is.

In 2006 he choreographed the critically-acclaimed live-action piece, I Am A Believer with a cast of dozens for visual artist Reza Aramesh in Trafalgar Square.  Tom also leads educational projects throughout the UK and internationally both for TDC and other companies.  He has lead projects and created dance works for all four of the UK’s major conservatoires for dance and for National Centres for Advanced Training.

National Dance Award-nominee Jemima Brown has performed with Tom Dale Company in ‘I Infinite’ and ‘Step Sonic’ and in ‘Epilogues’ and ‘We Are As Gods’ for James Cousins.  She says: “I’ve always wanted to incorporate my love of music and dance into my work.  Having the opportunity to sing in this show is amazing new territory for me.  While it presents a tricky balance between getting the vocals and breath to work in harmony with the movement, Tom and I focused on getting it right throughout rehearsals.  We both admire Ital Tek’s work and I really enjoyed collaborating with him to find the right blend of vocals with his electronic sound.”

Barret Hodgson of Vent Media is an innovative, award winning design artist specialising in digital visual media for live performance, art installations and art galleries and museums. Previous work for Tom Dale Company includes ‘I Infinite’, ‘Digitopia’ and ‘Refugees of the Septic Heart’.  Recent work includes creating huge projection mapping for Nottingham Castle, IBM 100 Club in Lisbon, Portugal, the Guggenheim Bilbao Museum in Spain, and Birmingham MAC among others.

British electronic artist Ital Tek releases music on his own label, Planet Mu.  His trademark hypnotic sound is punctuated with themes of dubstep, ambient, and more.  His composition for the five-track concept album ‘SURGE’ was developed in close collaboration with Jemima Brown and Tom Dale. Listen here.

The British musician/composer Wen, aka Owen Darby, started developing his own take on grime in his teens and released his first album, ‘Signals’ in 2014 on Keysound.   He quickly became a favourite on Rinse fm and at London clubs and started producing and re-mixing with other artists.  His album ‘Ephem:era’ – elegant, stripped-back grime – was released in 2018. Listen here.

SUB:VERSION and SURGE is showing at Hull Truck Theatre on 18 April at 7:30pm, don’t forget to book your tickets.