ENSEMBLE presents: The premiere of Home Solo
Ensemble, Norfolk’s contemporary dance company, is premiering its latest work – Home Solo – in Norwich, before embarking on a tour taking in London, New York and Brighton.
Home Solo is an intimate performance that weaves together contemporary dance, spoken word and original live music and song, in an epic tale of feeling at home in your own skin. It’s a show for anyone who has ever wanted to get home.
It is devised and performed by Norwich-based Hayley Matthews, contemporary dancer and choreographer, and Hej Jones, composer and multi-instrumentalist.
Home Solo also reflects contributions from the local community about what it means to be at home with who you are and where you are, and integrates their voices and ideas into the performance. The music is performed on the enchanting butone, acoustic guitar and with recorded voice forming the basis of a powerful synthesised drum solo.
Hayley Matthews said: “I started making Home Solo at a time and in a place where I didn't feel at home at all, after a bike accident left me unable to dance for some time. But the show is bigger than that; I think it unveils an experience we can all relate to – the journey home, not to a place but to a way of being, which is difficult to put your finger on.
“The show also feels to me like a re-imagining of boundaries, which feels poignant now, in the context of today’s politically charged debates on our borders and boundaries in the UK. For me, the re-imagining, the way through the turmoil, has to start with the individual. We have to learn to sit with ourselves, the suffering, the hurt, the anger, the beauty and to develop good boundaries and to be comfortable in our own skin (our own border line), before we can even think of beginning to relate to others, and our political border lines. To do this we need to develop independence, interdependence, resilience and be ok with utter vulnerability, with only our skin, no fort, no wall, no political boundary to protect us.”
Pasco-Q Kelvin, Director of the Norwich Arts Centre, said: “Particularly at this moment in our social history, we need artists of this calibre making work as engaging and insightful as this.”
The audience is seated close to the performers in this 45-minute show and can see the grace and the beauty as well as the stumbles and hard work of being performers – and of being human.
Home Solo is Ensemble's second full-length work, and Hayley Matthew's first solo show. Tickets are on a pay what you can basis from Norwich Arts Centre: www.norwichartscentre.co.uk, 01603 660352.
The project is co-commissioned by Norwich Arts Centre, funded and supported by Arts Council England, Dance East, The Garage Norwich and Norfolk County Council.
www.ensembledance.org/home-solo
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Notes to editor
For more information, photos or interviews please contact Christina Lister, marketing consultant for Home Solo, on 07968 438273 or email comms@christinalister.co.uk.
About ENSEMBLE
ENSEMBLE is the company of Contemporary Dancer and Choreographer Hayley Matthews. We sever the dividing lines between performers and audiences, art and health, dance and reality. We do this by creating powerful, touching, intimate dance and interdisciplinary performance that builds deep relationships with local community and reaches and integrates audiences.
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