DanceWorks

Using the lyrical and elegant metaphor of a ballet classic about death, this film explores how a dancer fights age, the deterioration of the body over time and fear of retirement. Former Royal Ballet principal Zenaida Yanowsky, plans to overcome knee surgery and fight her body back to fitness so as to perform a swansong, one of ballet’s best-known of solos, The Dying Swan. For Zenaida, this is one of her last public performances before drawing the curtains on an acclaimed classical ballet career.

Dickson Mbi is at a critical breakthrough point in his career as he transitions from his street dance roots to the contemporary dance limelight. This film follows Dickson as he wins the UK heat of the international street dance competition Keep on Dancing (KOD). This is nothing, however, compared to the challenge that now faces him as he starts to choreograph and perform his first contemporary dance solo under the watchful eyes of Akram Khan’s producer, Farooq Chaudhry.

Experimental and highly original, Shobana Jeyasingh’s new work Contagion will, through dance, evoke the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, which killed over 50 million people. This film will be a unique insight into a choreographer’s artistic process and their sources of inspiration as Shobana researches the pandemic and attempts to translate what she finds into movement, working closely with dancers on the stage.

Audacious and funny, Leeds-based Carlos Pons Guerra creates darkly humorous, highly theatrical and vigorously physical work that often explores questions of gender and sexual identity. Now, Carlos wants to bring his avant-garde style and preoccupations to a broader audience. This film follows Carlos as he begins choreographing a new children’s production at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre, which tells a true story of two male penguins raising a baby penguin. This work is about using dance to set an agenda - can Carlos bring the fight for acceptance that has defined him into the mainstream and win over family audiences?