About Us
Overview
New Adventures is an iconic and ground-breaking British dance-theatre company, famous for telling stories with a unique theatrical twist.
See our previous Years in Review here:
Our Story
We create world class productions and engaging projects, reaching thousands worldwide every year.
Matthew Bourne's New Adventures has inspired people of all ages and backgrounds since 1987. Award-winning dance theatre that's ambitious, inclusive, and utterly irresistible.
Under Matthew Bourne’s inspired leadership, knighted in the 2016 New Years’ Honours List for services to Dance, the Company has won the Manchester Evening News Dance Award four times and been given a Special Theatre Managers Association (TMA) award for its commitment to national touring and audience development.
In 2015 Matthew Bourne received a special UK Theatre Award for Outstanding Contribution to British Theatre and in in the same year, New Adventures also won the Stef Stefanou Outstanding Company Award at the National Dance Awards.
New Adventures has received numerous international awards and 12 Olivier Award nominations, including six wins.
Since 1986 Matthew Bourne has created 13 full-length productions and a triple bill of short works.
[MATTHEW BOURNE] HAS FILLED THE THEATRE WITH WARMTH AND LOVE, QUALITIES OFTEN LACKING ON THE CHILLIER SHORES OF CONTEMPORARY WORK
Sarah Crompton for The Sunday Times
This award-winning repertoire has inspired and thrilled millions worldwide. Perhaps best-known for its now legendary Swan Lake with its corps de ballet of menacing male swans, New Adventures’ intriguing twists on the ballet classics also include Nutcracker!, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, The Car Man based on the opera Carmen and Highland Fling based on La Sylphide set in contemporary Glasgow. Bourne has also been inspired by film and literature in his innovative productions of Edward Scissorhands, The Red Shoes, Dorian Gray, Play Without Words, The Midnight Belland Lord of the Flies, which united professional dancers and young men with no previous dance experience. Early Adventures re-visited some of Bourne’s early works for Adventures in Motion Pictures and toured to mid-scale theatres across the UK as part of the Company’s 25th and 30th Anniversary celebrations.
IN AN ERA WHEN DANCE COMPANIES ARE SUPPOSED TO FIGHT FOR FUNDING AND JUSTIFY THEIR EXISTENCE, NEW ADVENTURES CAN MAKE AN OUTSTANDING CASE FOR ITSELF.
The Times
New Adventures tours to more UK and international venues and gives more performances each year than any other UK dance company. The Company is British dance’s biggest export, performing seasons at the world’s most iconic venues including the Royal Albert Hall, Sydney Opera House, New York City Center, The Kennedy Center and the most prestigious Festivals such as Edinburgh, Ravenna and Chekhov International Festivals. It regularly tours to Asia and the USA.
A pioneer in taking dance to wider audiences through the medium of film, most of New Adventures’ productions have been filmed for television broadcast or cinema screenings. The recording of Swan Lake by Sky Arts 3D became the first ballet to be shot in 3D for cinema and DVD release.
BRITAIN’S MOST POPULAR AND MOST UNCLASSIFIABLE DANCE COMPANY.
San Francisco Chronicle
New Adventures supports the artistic and professional development of artists at all stages of their careers. Investing in the future of dance and theatre, every year New Adventures engages in inclusive projects with thousands of people of all ages and ability, as well as emerging artists across the UK. Projects have also been delivered in China, Singapore, Japan, South Korea and across the USA.
In 2014, the national tour of Lord of the Flies visited 13 cities, engaging over 8,000 young people in dance activity, many for the first time, delivering 80 performances and reaching some 75,000 people as audiences. Following the success of the show in the UK the production had its first international season at Arts Centre Melbourne, Australia in 2017.
We are committed to finding and developing diverse young talent from across the UK. Since our production of Lord of the Flies we have been continually supporting them on their journey into training and professional work. The company have delivered various initiatives, including Swan School, two week-long intensives designed to prepare graduate level dancers for the audition process. The 2018/19 revival of Swan Lake was the first New Adventures production to feature dancers from the young cast of Lord of the Flies. New Adventures continues to work with universities and conservatoires to support the next generation of artists as well as, Overture, an exceptional professional development opportunity for dance practitioners working in communities across England.
As part of our projects and workshop offering, in 2022-23 we led 185 Take Part activity sessions with 7,301 attendances. We aim to bring thrilling and ambitious opportunities to children, young people and communities.
The work of New Adventures would not be possible without the generous support of our principal funder Arts Council England and supporters from the UK regions we visit and around the world.
Matthew Bourne
Meet our Artistic Director Sir Matthew Bourne OBE.
Sir Matthew Bourne OBE is widely hailed as the UK’s most popular and successful choreographer and director.
Since 1986, he has been creating and directing dance for musicals, theatre, film as well as his own highly successful, award-winning companies.
Matthew is the creator of the world’s longest running ballet production, and has been recognised by numerous international awards. He was knighted in the Queen’s New Year Honours 2016 for services to dance, and awarded the Queen Elizabeth II Coronation Award – one of the most coveted honours in the world of dance – in recognition of his outstanding services to the art of ballet.
DANCE-THEATRE MARVEL, MATTHEW BOURNE… ONE OF DANCE’S TRUE ORIGINALS
The Telegraph
IT'S A BLISTERING, GROWN-UP PIECE OF NON-VERBAL STORYTELLING...CREATED BY THE PEERLESS MASTER OF POPULAR DANCE THEATRE.
The Daily Express
Interview with Matthew Bourne (Dec 2023)
By Kate Wyver, The Stage
Company Values
Our core values are at the heart of everything we do.
Audience
Our audiences are why we do what we do. Entertaining and engaging audiences is our passion. We proudly tour extensively to venues across England, Scotland and Wales every year, as well as globally with our live, online and broadcast productions. We strive to be widely accessible and welcoming to both our loyal and new audiences.
Adventure
Since the beginning we have been bold, maverick and adventurous. 30 years on we continue to push boundaries and defy expectations in dance, storytelling and ambition. We are committed to reaching as many people and places as possible through our productions and projects.
Family
We have a shared commitment to supporting, developing and investing in all members of the New Adventures company and everyone involved with our work in whatever capacity – performers, creatives, crew, staff, practitioners, audiences, participants, trustees, students, interns, volunteers and partners. We all matter.
Our Team
Meet the team of people from across different departments and roles, who enable us to bring our work to audiences across the globe.
Associate Artists
Senior Leadership Team
Robert
Noble OBE
Group Managing Director
Jennie
Green
Executive DirectorSenior Management Team
Press and Marketing
Press - Simon Raw for RawPR
Marketing & Media - Elaine McGowan for EMG
Ambassadors
Patricia Ward
Kelly
Ambassador
Will
Kemp
Ambassador
Myleene
Klass
Ambassador
Zizi
Strallen
Ambassador
Layton
Williams
AmbassadorGreen Adventures
Setting the stage for sustainable touring
Green Adventures was set up to reduce the carbon impact of New Adventures' activity and ensure the organisation is responsible for its environmental impact. Green Adventures is guided by a working group of trustees, staff and freelancers who help to shape and steer this work.
All organisations must work to lessen their environmental impact, take responsibility for their actions, and increase sustainability. In 2018 we joined an ever-growing group of community and cultural leaders committed to taking bold and strategic action against the climate crisis. This work was spear-headed by Andrew Ashton, who spent 8 years as our Environmental Manager, bringing his expertise, insight and passion to this work. We are very grateful to Andrew for forging a pathway that we continue on today.
New Adventures creates and tours world-class productions and delivers engaging Take Part projects, reaching thousands worldwide each year. We believe in the future of dance and finding and nurturing the next generation of dancers. Green Adventures has a pivotal role in the organisation and helps us to be a champion of sustainability within the industry — embracing environmental responsibility in its value chain, collaborating with others, and advocating for policy changes to further sustainable development.
We are proud to be working alongside Theatre Green Book, a collective of initiative theatre makers across the world, to ensure our work is as sustainable as possible. By following their guidance and participating in their networks we can continue to grow our sustainability efforts and share our successes and challenges with others in the industry working towards a shared goal.
Our Successes and Next Steps
Work in Green Adventures covers our office, our productions and our Take Part work. Below you can find some of our successes and next steps:
Success – we have changed our mobile phone contracts working with a company who invests its profits in projects which increase biodiversity across the UK.
Next Steps – we are working to review all suppliers and implement an environmental suppliers list which details where we source things from and why, helping us to review our sustainability every time.
Success – all programmes for our touring productions use recycled paper and vegetable inks
Next Steps – we currently use the most sustainable freight options available to us to tour our productions. We know that a large portion of our carbon impact comes from touring around the country. Currently, there are limited options available to us as haulage is not yet electrified but we will continue to make changes as infrastructure develops.
Success – we track our carbon impact each year using the Julie’s Bicycle tools and use this information to understand where we can improve. This enables us to track more and more information and dig deeper into our organisational impacts.
Next Steps – we are working to implement a Materials Inventory (based on the Theatre Green Book template) for all our projects which have a performance element. This will give us insight into each project and enable us to reduce the physical impact of these performances.
Our work in Green Adventures is ongoing. We are aware that there are changes we have not yet made, and that we might not be able to make for a long time, and areas where we must improve. Green Adventures is about understanding our achievements but also highlighting where we still have work to do to continue our leading work in this industry.
Doorstep Duets 2025 – Advanced Theatre Green Book Standard
During summer 2025, New Adventures was proud to work alongside Theatre Green Book to reduce the environmental impact of Doorstep Duets. Doorstep Duets brings world-class dance performances to local communities, on their street, in their park, or through local community organisations across the South East. Sustainability was embedded into the project from the outset, shaping both creative choices and practical delivery as the tour travelled to different audiences.
By committing to fully second-hand costumes and props, the production significantly reduced material waste while celebrating the creative potential of re-use. 83% of set, props and costumes had been used before and 93% went on to be reused after the tour. There were compostable balloons, school desks which went on to a youth production and hired costumes which were returned to be used again. As a result of these choices, Doorstep Duets achieved Advanced Level accreditation under the Theatre Green Book framework. This is thanks to the hard work and careful consideration of everyone on the production team. The project demonstrated that environmentally responsible practice can sit at the heart of joyful and ambitious community-focused dance. We look forward to further developing our sustainable practices in future work.
This year on Doorstep Duets, we are piloting an electric van for one week of the tour. The pilot will look at cost, the impact on the company, available infrastructure and time management around charging. This is an exciting development which we hope will lead to implementing a fully electric tour in the near future.
Circular Economy Projects
Our producing model here at New Adventures allows us to work with materials in a circular way. Improving this cycle and reducing waste is a big part of our Green Adventures production strategy.
Sets and Props
When a tour comes to a close, we store all of our sets and props for a future iteration of the show. This means that they have a future life beyond each production and are used over and over again on tour.
Costumes
Our Costumes are carefully stored after each show. At the beginning of a new show run, The Head of Wardrobe looks through all of the costumes and conducts fittings with each dancer to assign costumes. If anything comes to the end of its life on tour, we work hard to find new homes for these items. Often they are donated to fashion students to use in their projects, other times they are sent to be recycled responsibly. 100% of the costumes from both The Red Shoes and The Car Man have either been reused in a new revival or have been recycled, re-homed or donated ensuring nothing goes to landfill.
Wigs
Our Wigs Manager is working hard on a project to catalogue and document all of our wig stock across all productions. Eventually, this will mean that ensemble wigs can be used in multiple productions meaning we create fewer wigs from scratch. We have already seen the benefits from this project, in its early stages, with 2/3 of the wigs needed for The Car Man being found within our current stock. We are in the earliest stages of this project and look forward to sharing the journey as the inventory takes shape.
Green Adventures Working Group
Alex
Towers
Senior Take Part Producer - Widening Access
Aysha
Powell
Chief Operating Officer
Beth
Wilson
Operations Manager
Erin
Thomson
Assistant Production Manager
Gavin
Eden
Dance Artist
Huw
Morris
Trustee
Isaac
Peter Bowry
Dancer
James
Miller
Assistant General Manager
Jodie
Cole
Regional Dance Ambassador - Canterbury
Lucy
Packham
Wigs Manager (Stores)
Kaasam
Aziz
Head of Content
Karishma
Young
Dancer
Mami
Tomotani
Resident Director/Dancer
Sophie
Utting
Regional Dance Ambassador - Norwich
Suyeon
Na
Company AssistantAndrew Ashton, who previously worked as Environmental Manager and Green Champion, reveals 3 ways New Adventures is creating solutions for a sustainable future in theatre in this short film.
Opportunities
Find out about recruitment for jobs, upcoming auditions and opportunities.
Thank you for taking an interest in New Adventures. You're in the right place if you're a dancer looking for opportunities or an arts professional seeking out your next career move. We don't currently have any opportunities listed, however this page is updated regularly so check back or join our mailing list to hear when we do.
