We’re pleased to announce the choreographers for Interplay, our dynamic Spring 2026 tour spotlighting work by internationally acclaimed artists.

In Spring 2026, our company presents a powerful mixed bill that places creative collaboration at its core, exploring themes of duality and the fusion of distinct artistic voices. Featuring duet and ensemble works, each piece offers a bold and dynamic interplay between contrasting perspectives, celebrating the beauty of shared vision and artistic exchange. 

The choreographers for our Spring 2026 tour, Interplay, are James Pett & Travis Clausen-Knight (Pett & Clausen-Knight), Ed Myhill, and Marcus Jarrell Willis & Yusha-Marie Sorzano. 

Spring 2026 Programme

Why Are People Clapping?! by Ed Myhill (restaged by Camille Giraudeau)
Next of Kin by Marcus Jarrell Willis 
Small Talk by James Pett & Travis Clausen-Knight
*Brand new work* by Marcus Jarrell Willis & Yusha-Marie Sorzano

Find out more about each artist below.

Tickets for our premiere at York Theatre Royal are now available to book. More venues and tour dates will be announced soon.

Pett & Clausen Knight

James Pett & Travis Clausen-Knight are choreographers, dancers and founders of PCK Dance. After having incredibly successful individual careers (Company Wayne McGregor, Michael Clarke Company, New Adventures Matthew Bourne & Richard Alston Dance), this dynamic duo has built a reputation for creating highly provocative works captured through their intensely powerful movement language. In 2023 and 2024, PCK Dance was nominated by the Critics Circle as the “Best Independent Company” and “Best Emerging Choreographers” at The National Dance Awards. 

Their company tours extensively around the globe, from Asia to Europe and the US. The choreographers have a vast repertoire of over 20 works, including short and full-length evening productions. Their latest touring work, IMAGO, premiered at the world-renowned Teatro Grande in Italy, receiving an outstanding five-star review. They create for dance companies and production houses, including recently commissioned work with Ballet de Santiago, Croatian National Ballet and Ballet De Monterrey, in Mexico. 

James & Travis continue performing extensively worldwide as guest dancers in Ballet Galas, Opera Houses, and festivals, including Roberto Bolle & Friends, The Ballet Icons Gala, Alessandra Ferri Gala, Paris Opera Ballet, Royal Ballet, and many more. 

Alongside touring and creating, they actively seek to engage with arts institutions and communities, spanning all age groups, from youth to the elderly. They have been recognised for their work in the cultural exchange sector and honoured with grants from multiple Embassies and Trusts. Some achievements include collaborating with the British Council on their ‘Creative Ageing’ programme and ‘Creative Movement’ workshops for Ukrainian refugees within Eastern Europe. 

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Marcus Jarrell Willis & Yusha-Marie Sorzano

Marcus Jarrell Willis

Marcus Jarrell Willis joined Phoenix Dance Theatre as Artistic Director in October 2023. As a performer, he toured internationally with companies including Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (2008–2016), Ailey II, RIOULT, and Tania Pérez-Salas Compañía de Danza. He has taught and led workshops across the globe, engaging with both emerging and professional dancers.

His choreography has been commissioned by Ailey II, Ballet Memphis, Ballet Cymru, The Juilliard School, TU Dance, and others, with his work presented across the U.S. and Europe. He was named Best Choreographer in 2018 for his acclaimed piece ‘Sensible Existence‘ for TU Dance, which was later developed into a full-length work.

Willis was the 2018/19 Leverhulme Choreography Fellow at Rambert and is currently Associate Artist at Ballet Cymru. In 2022, he launched ‘Works in Progress’ (WIP) in partnership with Ballet Cymru, an initiative supporting choreographers in Wales. Marcus also runs his independent performance project, MJ Willis Project-Inc.

Willis, inspired by the breadth and depth of the human experience, remains focused on uniting people through the art of dance.

Yusha-Marie Sorzano

Hailing from the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, Yusha-Marie Sorzano is a dynamic performing artist, choreographer, educator, and leader whose career spans concert dance, theater, opera, television, and film. Having performed in eight renowned concert dance companies—including Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Complexions Contemporary Ballet, and Camille A. Brown & Dancers. Her work builds bridges among cultural identities, dance forms, and styles to reveal the universality of dance as communion.

Her choreography is both a celebration of our multiplicity and a weapon of resistance—a way to reconcile and champion the full spectrum of her identity. She has created works addressing social justice, feminine identity, and the intersectional experiences of Deaf minorities, informed by her own experience as a hard-of-hearing artist. She has collaborated with creative leaders across disciplines, including Wu-Tang Clan’s RZA, Camille A. Brown, Matthew Rushing, Ari Afsar, Lauren Gunderson, Jermaine Spivey, and Spenser Theberge, and her practice has been supported by fellowships at The Watermill Center, the Jerome Robbins Dance Division at the New York Public Library, and YoungArts: The National Foundation for the Advancement of the Arts. She was one of eleven choreographers featured in Edges of Ailey at the Whitney Museum of American Art, the first large-scale exhibition to honor Alvin Ailey’s legacy, and she is the choreographer of RZA’s A Ballet Through Mud, a poignant coming-of-age story exploring love, friendship, and growth. Sorzano is the Founder and Artistic Director of Sorzano Dance Works, a project-based company through which she advances her creative vision, and she is pursuing a Master’s degree in Interdisciplinary Dance Research at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, where her scholarship deepens her commitment to contextual, inclusive, and transformative dance practices.

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Ed Myhill (restaged by Camille Giraudeau)

Ed Myhill

Ed Myhill is a choreographer and dancer from Leeds. His work is defined by his love for music and explores the relationships between music, dance and human expression. Why Are People Clapping?! encapsulates this with its use of rhythm, humour and instinctive play through dance. This work was created in 2018 and has toured extensively throughout the UK and Europe. Ed is extremely excited to have the opportunity to bring this work to Phoenix Dance Theatre who had such a huge impact on Ed’s early dance experiences when growing up in Leeds.

Headshot credit Kirsten McTernan. 

Camille Giraudeau

Former dancer with National Dance Company Wales for over 10 years, Camille Giraude has performed nationally and internationally with works by Christopher Bruce, Alexander Ekman, Johan Inger, Marcos Morau, Angelin Prejlocaj, Roy Asaf and Caroline Finn among many others. Since becoming a freelance artist Camille has worked with Alexander Whitley on his ‘8 minutes’ tour, contributed to some R&D for Vanara the musical, as well as returning to NDCWales as a guest artist, alongside other projects. Camille worked as projects producer for National Youth Dance Wales, creating platforms for young Welsh dancers to train and perform and is now an associate artist for them. Currently Camille is teaching on a range of different professional and educational platforms in Wales. She is a teacher at Rubicon Dance School teaching BTech Ballet and is one of the ballet lecturers at the University of Wales Trinity Saint Davids. Camille delivers contemporary class and creative sessions on the Ballet Cymru pre professional programme as well as teaching professional class to NDCWales, Ballet Cymru company and other visiting companies and artists. Camille loves helping dancers build on their creative tool box, develop their artistry and become bold and confident in their abilities to thrive as individual artists.

Headshot credit Mathew Prichard.