Sadler's Wells to mark centenary of The Rite of Spring with new commission

http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2012/oct/30/sadlers-wells-rite-of-spring

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One hundred years to the day after Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring caused a near riot in Paris, the British choreographer Akram Khan will present his interpretation of what was a seminal moment for the arts, Sadler's Wells has announced.

Khan, fresh from the Olympic opening ceremony where he devised the piece paying tribute to the victims of the 7 July bombings, has been commissioned to create a new full-length work to mark the centenary of Stravinsky's work that was first performed by Sergei Diaghilev's Ballet Russes with choreography by Vaslav Nijinsky.

Khan stressed it would be his own interpretation, using his own music and choreography. "I won't be paying any homage to the existing choreography," he said. "It is a great privilege … terrifying at the same time."

The Khan work will be one of a number of Rite of Spring centenary celebrations next year including a festival at the Bolshoi, opening with a new choreography by Wayne McGregor, and 14 different performances of the work at the theatre where the original hoo-hah took place – Paris's Theatre des Champs-Elysées where, in 1913, the unfamiliar sounds prompted audience apoplexy.

Khan will zone in on Stravinsky himself – the work will be called iTMOi (in the mind of Igor) – and will use 12 performers, but "not the usual kind of dancers I would take. I'm drawing on different backgrounds, a different experience and expertise." They include the French actor Catherine Schaub-Abkarian, a set of twins and a couple of break dancers. There will be an original score by three composers – Nitin Sawhney, Jocelyn Pook and Ben Frost.

The commission was the idea of the Sadler's Wells artistic director, Alistair Spalding, who also announced a programme in what will be the 15th year of the organisation in its current north London home.

It will see the late Pina Bausch's Tanztheater Wuppertal returning after the enormously successful World Cities retrospective jointly staged this summer by Sadler's Wells and the Barbican. The company will perform two works – Two Cigarettes in the Dark (1985) and Full Moon (2006) in what will become an annual visit.

The announcement was made at the launch of the Sadler's Wells annual report, which showed an organisation in good health with an increased number of performances and healthy ticket sales. The report showed that 90% of its £22.8m turnover was generated from earned income and 71% came through ticket sales.

All that is in the context of dance's booming popularity in the UK, which prompted Spalding to deliver a note of concern over the government's plans to exclude arts subjects, including dance, from the proposed English baccalaureate. "This is a great pity as we are currently reaping the rewards that the investment in dance education has brought us … The route to a career in dance is now under threat. This is against a background in which the artform is thriving. Dance is now second only to football as the most popular activity amongst schoolchildren, and ranks first among girls."