This November, Sadler’s Wells presents a triple bill of new commissions by Jules Cunningham, Michael Keegan-Dolan and Maud Le Pladec, created in response to music by composer Nico Muhly. The original production was due to premiere at Sadler’s Wells in 2020, but was curtailed by the pandemic.
Marking Time is part of Sadler’s Wells’ Composer Series, which pairs exceptional contemporary composers with leading choreographers to inspire unique collaborations. During the performance, there will be live music performed by Britten Sinfonia supplemented with recordings from Nico’s catalogue.
Nico Muhly is an American composer whose work spans orchestral music, works for the stage, chamber music and sacred music, and includes commissions for The Metropolitan Opera, Carnegie Hall, Westminster Abbey and the Royal Ballet. His collaborators range from musicians James Blake and Sufjan Stevens to choreographers Benjamin Millepied, Mark Morris and Justin Peck. His work has also appeared on screen, with highlights including Howards End (2017) and Panchinko for Apple TV+ (2022-2024).
Michael Keegan-Dolan’s piece, The Only Tune, is based on a song especially written for American folk artist Sam Amidon by Muhly. Amidon is a regular collaborator of Keegan-Dolan, and will appear onstage to perform alongside eight international dancers. An otherworldly, atmospheric piece marked by its haunting theatricality, Keegan-Dolan interprets Muhly’s piece with an essence of dance macabre.
Associate Artist Jules Cunningham presents their new work SLANT, to ‘Drones’, an existing piece from Muhly’s repertoire reshaped for this triple bill. Danced by Cunningham and four dancers from Julie Cunningham & Company, the poetic performance celebrates Cunningham’s signature precise and captivating choreographic vocabulary, set to an experimental piece of Muhly’s, constructed around a continual drone sound and now accompanied by live orchestration from Britten Sinfonia.
Finally, French choreographer Maud Le Pladec returns to Sadler’s Wells with Veins of Water, set to three of Muhly’s existing pieces – ‘Diacritical Marks’ and ‘Drown’. Muhly’s composition ‘Drown’ was inspired by an object he saw in a maritime history museum in which a lost sailor marked time by gouging a dash in a piece of wood. In Le Pladec’s interpretation, three female dancers explore this notion of time
Nico Muhly, composer, said, “I am overjoyed to have these works presented at Sadler’s Wells; I can’t think of another place which could create a space for these three very different pieces to be staged by three very different choreographers. In some way, I feel like an audience member myself anytime I see my music set to movement; I feel as if I’m constantly learning something new, or seeing a detail teased out or a gesture amplified in a surprising way. All three compositions share a kind of obsessive nature, sometimes austere but often ecstatic; Jules, Michael, and Maud have created an entire library of line, movement, and story around the music, and I’m so excited to see it all take shape.”
Marking Time will be at Sadler’s Wells Theatre Thursday 20 – Saturday 22 November. Tickets are on sale now from £15 at www.sadlerswells.com
