Interplay
Premiered February 2026
In Spring 2026, Phoenix Dance Theatre presented Interplay, a powerful mixed bill showcasing work by internationally renowned choreographers.
Premiering at York Theatre Royal on Friday 27 February before touring to Leeds Playhouse, Liverpool Playhouse, Malvern Theatres, Cast, Lawrence Batley Theatre, Theatr Clwyd and Sadler’s Wells East.
Exploring themes of duality, connection and contrast, the compelling programme highlighted the meeting of different creative perspectives through both duet and ensemble performances. Bold, thought-provoking and visually striking, Interplay celebrated the richness of artistic exchange and the transformative power of collaboration.
About the works
Next of Kin by Marcus Jarrell Willis
Originally premiering at the Ailey Citigroup Theatre in New York City in 2013, Next of Kin now enters the Interplay programme and Phoenix Dance Theatre repertoire as a newly reimagined production. The restaged work displays the witty nuances at play between two like-minded souls colliding on their journey through life.
Why Are People Clapping?! by Ed Myhill (restaged by Camille Giraudeau)
Set to composer Steve Reich’s Clapping Music, Why Are People Clapping?! uses rhythm as a driving force. Ed Myhill’s sense of humour is clear in the choreography as well as his appreciation for the music of life – rhythm can be found in a tennis match, footsteps in an empty street and in the beat of our own hearts – and dance can be inspired by that passion for living, from tapping your toes right up to the way our eyes scrunch up when we smile.
Small Talk by Pett Clausen-Knight
In Small Talk, two figures share a room that feels both intimate and estranged. A carpet, a chair and a lamp stand as silent companions, observing the lives of two people who now struggle to recognise what has quietly slipped away between them. They hover between conflict and confused tenderness, revealing how relationships often fade not through catastrophe, but through the slow exhaustion of time.
Suite Release by Yusha-Marie Sorzano and Marcus Jarrell Willis
Artistic Director, Marcus Jarrell Willis and acclaimed choreographer, Yusha-Marie Sorzano come together to craft a work that reclaims dance as instinct, inheritance, resistance and joy. Suite Release is a new contemporary dance co-creation, focused through a lens inspired by meditation on the quiet disappearance of communal movement – and the places where it never left. Drawing from influences of hip-hop and house culture’s origins in gathering and release, the piece unfolds as ritual rather than choreography, asking audiences not just to watch but to remember.