EncoreEast is delighted to announce its success in being awarded Arts Council England funding towards its unique collaborative dance project ‘Home from Home’. The project will involve over 50 older dancers. Under the overall direction of Luca Silvestrini, artistic director of Protein Dance, ‘Home from Home’ will see four companies of older dancers creating a new dance work. These four pieces will then be combined to create a new full-length work which will be performed in the companies’ home venues in Ipswich, Norwich and London.

The companies, choreographers and venues:

• EncoreEast’s short work will be created by Alethea Antonia and their home venue is DanceEast in Ipswich.
• Cadenza’s short work will be created by Laura Anderson and their home venue is Norwich Playhouse.
• Damn Fine Dance’s short work will be created by Molly Wright and Luke Birch and their home venue is The Place, London
• The Place Dancers, a newly formed company for Home from Home, are in the process of identifying a choreographer. The Place, London, will also be their home venue.

The process of devising and creating the work will start in early 2023 and it will be performed in October 2023.  EncoreEast is leading the project with support from DanceEast. All the venues are collaborating on commissioning the choreographers and providing space for rehearsals and performances.

Brendan Keaney, Artistic Director and CEO of DanceEast said:  I am so proud of EncoreEast and delighted that DanceEast is working with the company on another exciting initiative. This is probably their most ambitious project yet and will make a real difference to the creativity, innovation and visibility of dance and older people. It is a considerable coup to have secured the services of Luca Silvestrini as I can think of few choreographers who are better placed to deliver the ambitions of this great company.

Luca Silvestrini, Artistic Director of Home from Home said:  I am incredibly excited by the innovative nature of this project and the impact it’s going to have. It’s refreshing to see several choreographers, companies of older dancers and venues coming together, combining their different voices and experiences and contributing towards a seamless and cohesive piece of dance theatre. It’s great to be orchestrating this with the wonderful and inspiring EncoreEast and thanks to DanceEast, The Place and Norwich Theatres for supporting such a pioneering initiative.