Theatre Preview: Local school children and older people join professional cast for premiere of Rumpelstiltskin 24-28 October 2017, Northern Stage

Leading Newcastle based dance theatre company balletLORENT returns to Northern Stage with the prem-iere of the classic fairytale Rumpelstiltskin (24-28 October 2017).

Following the award winning and critically acclaimed Rapunzel (2012-2015), and Snow White (2015-2016), balletLORENT present the final part of their trilogy of Brothers Grimm fairytales. Choreographed and di-rected by balletLORENT’s Artistic Director Liv Lorent MBE and retold by Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy, Rum-pelstiltskin is dance theatre for the 21st century audience.

The professional ensemble will be joined by a cast of North East children aged 4-9 years old, found through creative workshops in six local primary schools and older people (aged 68+) from local community groups.

Liv Lorent explains, “The children and older people who feature in our production of Rumpelstiltskin add an authenticity to the fairytale world we are creating. The wide age span - from 4-79 - of these guest performers comes closer to the reality of the communities we all inhabit. All of the community cast from the east and west ends of Newcastle upon Tyne have shared their creativity with us with great generosity, and have enhanced our work with their individuality. Without them, our range of ex-perience is limited as we are all dance professionals and our bodies are trained in a certain way. But with our guest cast we can tell stories of humanity with a deeper truth, and they offer the impressions of what our bodies once were, and what they may become.”

“I am loving it! It’s different, it’s something new! When you get to our age, you need to have some-thing different to do.” Sylvie (participant)

“At the start [of the workshops] I felt embarrassed but then I put my heart into it. It was great, thank you!” Year 3 pupil, Knop Law Primary School

Liv Lorent has been reunited with the team of world renowned collaborators who created Rapunzel and Snow White: Dame Carol Ann Duffy (Whitbread, T.S. Eliot and Pinter Prize winner); five time BAFTA nomi-nated composer Murray Gold (Doctor Who); narrator Ben Crompton (Game of Thrones); BAFTA and Emmy Award winning costume designer Michele Clapton (Game of Thrones and The Crown); set designer Phil Eddolls (joint TMA award winner for Improbable’s The Hanging Man); and OBIE and Outer Critics Cir-cle award-winning lighting designer Malcolm Rippeth.

“It’s a joy and a thrill to be collaborating once again with Liv Lorent and her creative team and to be bringing to life another seminal fairytale to family audiences who love dance or who have yet to discover it.” Carol Ann Duffy, Scenario Writer (Poet Laureate)

With clever characterisation, Rumpelstiltskin will celebrate the underdog, the refugee, in a tale of a man’s desperate longing for love and belonging, set in a rural world of a shepherd and his daughter. Rumpelstiltskin is performed by eight of balletLORENT’s core dancers who have been central to the choreographic development of the fairytales and who have a diverse age range of 22-53 years. Liv Lorent: “Rumpelstiltskin is the story of the outsider, shunned for being different, and the secret power and knowledge he possesses. He is the original super mutant, a fairytale X-Man. Through the

eyes of balletLORENT’s first male protagonist, we are looking to explore themes of love, obsession, childhood, grief and reconciliation – a show that is full of beautiful imagery and music and is made as much for adults as it is for children.”

Co-produced by Northern Stage and commissioned by Sadler’s Wells.