Annual Review 2018/19
For our 2018/19 Annual Review we wanted to present another stellar year for New Adventures in a digitally engaging and innovative way to reflect the strides that we are taking in creating rich content for our audiences. We hope you enjoy being guided through last year’s work which includes our performances onstage, our investment in talent development and our projects with young people and communities.
Executive Summary
511,285 PEOPLE ENGAGED IN OUR ACTIVITY
455,337 live audience members
363 performances including 8 large scale participation projects
29% first time attenders
80% total tickets sold across all public performances
37 venues in 18 countries
18,475 cinema admissions with 550 cinema screenings
11,700 viewers – Swan Lake and The Car Man on SkyArts
510 workshop sessions
14,893 workshop attendances
Awards & Achievements
AUSTRALIAN DANCE AWARDS 2018 – Patrick Weir nominated for Outstanding Performance by a Male Dancer for his portrayal of Simon in Matthew Bourne's production of Lord of the Flies at Arts Centre Melbourne
BESSIE AWARDS 2018 - Nominated for Outstanding Production & Lez Brotherston (Set & Costume), Duncan McLean (Video & Projection) & Paule Constable (Lighting) nominated for Outstanding Visual Design, both for The Red Shoes
CREATIVE GREEN AWARDS 2018 – Winner of the Creative Green Pioneer Award
THE STAGE 100 2019 – Matthew Bourne (26); New Adventures Associate Artist, Paule Constable (27)
Matthew Bourne was also awarded an honorary degree by the University of Oxford and made patron of Tring Park School.
He is undoubtedly the UK's most popular and successful choreographer and director; his unique style helps to bring dance to a wider audience and we are lucky to have Sir Matthew as a patron.
Stefan Anderson, Tring Park School Principal
Where we've been
Introduction
It gives us great pleasure to report another highly successful year for New Adventures.
We toured two large-scale shows for a total of 355 performances for 36 weeks nationally and internationally. We sold 80% of all tickets available and 29% of our audiences were first time attenders.
We welcomed 29 new dancers to the company, some of whom were making their professional debuts and 3 of whom were first introduced to dance through our production of Lord of the Flies in 2014. We began our nationwide search for the brightest young dance talent to join us for our new production of Romeo and Juliet.
Exceptional projects for young people and communities included two whole school projects with London Fields Primary School and Roger Ascham Primary School, and My Shout - our Celebrating Age project in collaboration with Farnham Maltings. We are immensely proud of New Adventures’ achievements in delivering a wide range of ambitious and high quality programmes to support talent development and engage young people, older people and communities.
This could not be achieved without the expertise, commitment and enthusiasm of the entire staff and the wider New Adventures family including supporters, funders and our Board of Trustees. Thank you to everyone for making this another fantastic year for New Adventures.
Cinderella National & International Tour
Matthew Bourne’s Cinderella dances into WWII with a profound beauty
Los Angeles Times
One of New Adventures’ most popular and beloved productions, Cinderella– a thrilling and evocative love story, set in London during the Second World War - returned in 2017. The show continued its UK tour in 2018 to a further 10 venues across England, Wales and Scotland before heading to China, Japan and the USA. Following the show’s recording at Sadler’s Wells in December 2017 and Boxing Day broadcast on BBC2, it was screened in cinemas around the world.
- 27 dancers
- 80 off stage and backstage workers
- 169 performances
- 199,534 audiences members
- 18,475 cinema admissions
- 550 screenings
AWARDS
- National Dance Awards 2018 - Ashley Shaw in the title role nominated for Outstanding Female Modern Performance
- What's on Readers' Awards 2019 - Finalist for Best Dance Production
Swan Lake National Tour
The Production remains as vital as ever, alive with intricate detail and soaring physicality
The Stage
Matthew Bourne’s legendary production of Swan Lake returned with a fresh look for the 21st Century opening on 21 September 2018 at Theatre Royal Plymouth, and we presented our 17th Christmas season at Sadler’s Wells. In 2018/19 Swan Lake toured to 16 theatres across the UK and Ireland. This tour of Swan Lake was our first production to feature three dancers making their professional debuts who had their first experience of dance with New Adventures, in our 2014 production of Lord of the Flies. The production was filmed at Sadler’s Wells in December 2018 and screened in cinemas from May 2019
- 41 dancers
- 100 off stage and backstage workers
- 186 performances in 2018/19
- 255,803 audience members in 2018/19
Creative Team
Sir Matthew
Bourne OBE
Artistic Director
Pyotr Ilyich
Tchaikovsky
Composer
Lez
Brotherston OBE
Set & Costume Designer, Associate Artist
Paule
Constable
Associate Artist, Lighting Designer
Ken
Hampton
Sound Designer
Duncan
McLean
Video & Projection Designer
Etta
Murfitt MBE
Associate Artistic Director
Rowland
Lee
Musical Associate / Orchestral ArrangementsThis year has seen a number of different opportunities for dancers and artists from a wide range of backgrounds.
Romeo and Juliet
As part of New Adventures’ ambition to support the next generation of talent on and offstage our brand-new production of Matthew Bourne’s Romeo and Juliet featured the finest emerging male and female dancers from around the UK, as well as a group of Young Associate Artists who worked alongside the creative team.
Young Associate Artists
In 2018/19 six Young Associate Artists were recruited to work alongside the Romeo and Juliet Creative Team to produce our new show. You can find out who they are and their roles below:
The search began in April 2018 with a call-out for the next generation of young dancers currently in training aged between 16 and 19. Attracting over 1000 applications and following a UK-wide audition tour of 420 young people, six Local Cast members at each venue were chosen to perform alongside the New Adventures company.
Of the 80 dancers selected many were also part of the Young Ensemble of Lord of the Flies (2014), allowing us to further increase the legacy of our work.
Click here to find out more about the show and the Local Cast.
The whole experience has really moved me, and I feel it has really opened my eyes to truly what I want to do and has confirmed my love for dance even further
Alexander Love, Leicester Local Cast
Central School of Ballet Student Associates
Our Central School of Ballet Student Associates for 2018/19 were:
Alexander and Lewis were selected following auditions in 2018. They were involved in rehearsals for Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake at 3 Mills Studios and gave a number of performances during the show’s Christmas season at Sadler’s Wells. Alexander went on to join the company of Matthew Bourne’s Romeo and Juliet.
The student associate scheme has kickstarted the careers of all the alumni that have taken part. It has given them the opportunity to learn directly from Matthew Bourne and his team utilising the skills they have learnt at Central School of Ballet.
Chris Marney, Artistic Director of Ballet Central
Our 2018/2019 Student Associates Programme was proudly supported by:
We ran our Overture programme for the 4th time in 2018/19. Overture is an exceptional professional development opportunity for emerging dance artists and dance teachers working in communities across England. It takes place over four residential weekends at our base at Farnham Maltings.
The 15 artists in the 2018/19 cohort deliver activity within other dance companies and organisations, schools and conservatoires, as well as leading their own community dance programmes. The project is led by New Adventures Resident Artists together with community dance practitioner Tom Hobden.
A grounding and inspiring experience, tailored to our cohort from beginning to end
Alexandra Mettam, 2018-19 cohort
In August 2018 we held a three-day intensive for 27 invited dancers to delve into our work and learn from leading company dancers to develop and explore technical prowess, storytelling skills and performance excellence. Many from this intensive have then joined the company including Andrew Monaghan, Cordelia Braithwaite, João Carolino and many others who are now regular company members.
A Summer Adventure was led by Associate Artistic Director, Etta Murfitt and members of the company. Participants worked on duets from a number of New Adventures shows, such as Nutcracker!, The Car Man and Sleeping Beauty.
Professional Class
Following our first set of professional classes in 2017/18 this year we continued this opportunity to nurture potential candidates for our Annual Auditions, particularly dancers from black and minority ethnic (BAME) backgrounds. 46 male and female dancers attended the classes led by different New Adventures dance artists. 15 of those who attended these classes then went on to perform in Romeo and Juliet either in the Local Cast or main company.
Masterclass
We held a full day open access workshop for 27 recent graduates and dancers in vocational training. The participants took class, learnt repertoire from Swan Lake and delved into creative tasks. The session finished with a Q&A with the Creative Team and a ticket to see the show at Sadler’s Wells
Dancer Development
All of our company dancers and dance artists are offered professional development workshops, providing the opportunity to reflect and refresh their practice and concentrate on their own development. Regular training days are held where dancers are given the opportunity to learn about leading and delivering workshops as part of our offstage activity.
Jump Start
We piloted a new programme to empower and support dancers who are transitioning away from performing. Jump Start aims to help dancers harness the skills and knowledge gained in their performing careers and apply these to other roles within the sector.
2 company dancers received financial support to retrain and develop other projects as well as receiving mentoring from Resident Artist, Kerry Biggin. Tom Jackson Greaves received funding to develop a new piece of mid-scale dance theatre with additional support from Kneehigh and Chloe Wilkinson received funding to help her develop her dance movement psychotherapy skills in schools.
Jump Start was a truly wonderful opportunity. The funding offered me a rich learning experience and gave me weight, confidence and depth when applying and interviewing for creative therapy roles within the mental health arena.
Chloe Wilkinson, New Adventures Dance Artist
During this pilot year we evaluated and assessed the programme to ensure we were providing our dancers with the right level of support and opportunities and are developing this programme to offer a greater level of support in 2019-20 and beyond.
Young People & Communities
We are passionate about diversifying the dance landscape and investing in the future of dance, through delivering inclusive projects for people of all ages, abilities and backgrounds. We deliver work across England but the majority of our community work takes place in the South East.
14,983 attendances
510 workshop sessions
5 curtain raisers
2 Primary School Projects working with 930 children aged 3-11
Dancers in Residence
We delivered 2 whole school ‘Dancers in Residence’ projects at diverse inner-city primary schools. 930 children aged 3-11 took part and all staff participated in movement CPD sessions. Two Dance Artists were in residence at each school for a 7-week period where they worked with each class group once a week.
London Fields Primary School created their own piece inspired by the West African and Caribbean folklore of the Anansi Stories which was performed at Hackney Empire.
Roger Ascham Primary School created their own version of Matthew Bourne’s Nutcracker! which was performed at Walthamstow Assembly Hall. This project formed part of the Waltham Forest London Borough of Culture year.
Cinderella: A Museum Adventure
Our partnership with the Imperial War Museum culminated in performances and workshops at IWM London in June 2018 watched by over 1,000 people. This followed on from performances at IWM Duxford and IWM North in 2017-18. Inspired by Matthew Bourne’s Cinderella, an intergenerational company brought together people over 60 from the Sadler’s Wells ‘Silver Routes’ group and year 5 children from Vittoria Primary School. They responded to the war time stories and photographs that evoked themes of family, education and community with a performance in the atrium of the museum among the exhibits. Alongside the performances there were drop-in talks with evacuees and open dance workshops for families.
In Collaboration with Farnham Maltings
My Shout
We collaborated with Farnham Maltings on ‘My Shout’, a project to celebrate age and challenge stereotypes of what it means to grow old in England. We created a new dance piece with the group based on Matthew Bourne’s Cinderella. The piece was performed publicly at the Ignite Festival in Farnham, at Dance in the Meadow and as a curtain raiser before Cinderella at New Victoria Theatre, Woking.
I am so glad I stepped out of my comfort zone to take part
My Shout participant
Alongside the My Shout project we continued to deliver our regular monthly dance session for over 55s at Farnham Maltings. We had over 800 workshop attendances for both projects.
Dance in the Meadow
We presented the second Dance in the Meadow event in Farnham in June 2018 in conjunction with Farnham Maltings, Stopgap Dance Company and The Dance Movement. Dance in the Meadow is a free outdoor festival for the local community which features professional and amateur performances from local groups as well as participatory workshops in a variety of dance styles.
Surrey Partner Schools
We embarked on a new project, in partnership with Surrey Arts, to set up residencies in three secondary schools. Sessions took place at Sunnydown School (a SEN school in Caterham), Thomas Knyvett College (in Ashford) and Kings College Guildford to help build the shape of the 2019/20 residencies. This project is co funded by Artswork and Surrey Educational Trust.
Curtain Raisers
We delivered two Cinderella Curtain Raisers at the Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff and the Marlowe Theatre, Canterbury and three Swan Lake Curtain Raisers at Sadler’s Wells, London, Birmingham Hippodrome and the Mayflower, Southampton. These groups of young aspiring dancers each worked with New Adventures dance artists to create a short dance piece in response to the themes of the show which is performed live on stage in front of a packed auditorium before the show. 103 young people aged 11-18 years old participated in curtain raisers.
In Our Shoes
We delivered two ‘In our Shoes’ projects, with a refugee group in Bradford and with a SEN school in Nottingham. This is a unique two-day opportunity to experience first-hand what it is like to be a part of our company. On day one the group explores movement and themes from the show and creates a piece of choreography inspired by the show. On day two the group has a backstage tour, watches company class, has a Q&A with performers from the show and then perform their choreography onstage to the company.
Schools, Colleges and Workshops
We continued to deliver workshops across the UK in schools, colleges and other settings. Workshops are delivered with participants of any age and ability. We tailor workshops to suit Early Years through to Key Stages 1 – 5 as well as vocational, further and higher educational levels.
Open Workshops
We held open workshops for families and adults at Sadler’s Wells, London, His Majesty’s Theatre, Aberdeen and Bradford Alhambra.
By some form of strange magic, came this Saturday morning, I was a swan; a territorial, aggressive, cool swan. Me - a 62-year-old with the flexibility of an iron railing. The bragging rights alone are worth their weight in gold
Bradford Open Workshop participant
Summer Festivals
We returned to Latitude Festival where we performed the Swan/Prince duet on the Lake Stage to over 4,000 people. We also delivered open workshops to over 400 participants at Latitude and Camp Bestival.
Green Adventures
In July 2018 we launched ‘Green Adventures’, our new environmental sustainability strand of work which is our area of sector leadership as an Arts Council England Band 3 NPO organisation.
Matthew Bourne, said: "New Adventures is proud to be the first touring company to be working in partnership with Julie’s Bicycle on a Creative Green Touring certification.There is still so much more we can do, as a company and within our industry, to address the climate emergency and we continue to explore ways to be greener in all areas of our company."
New Adventures collaborated with Julie’s Bicycle, a charity which supports the creative community to act on climate change and environmental sustainability, to pilot a new Creative Green certification for the touring sector. Our 2018/19 UK tour of Swan Lake was the first Creative Green certified tour.
In recognition of this collaboration New Adventures was awarded the Creative Green Pioneer Award in the second annual Creative Green Awards which celebrates the many outstanding organisations taking action on climate and the environment.
Green Adventures is about taking steps to challenge behaviours and think creatively about green initiatives. Throughout the UK tour of Swan Lake, we sought to reduce our direct environmental impacts and used the opportunity to advocate to audiences and touring venues. New Adventures is working closely with Sadler’s Wells and Norwich Theatre Royal who are already leaders in this area.
We successfully applied to join the Arts Council England/Julie’s Bicycle Accelerator programme which aims to foster enterprise, innovation, future thinking and creative perspectives on climate and the environment in arts and cultural organisations.
We curated a range of short films for Swan Lake featuring different aspects of the production. We created a Digital Timeline of Swan Lake using original source material to track the production’s history which received a total of 1,121,682 online views at the end of March 2019.
Cinderella was shown in cinemas nationally in May 2018, including a live streamed Q&A with Matthew Bourne. It was screened in cinemas in 470 locations across the world with 18,475 admissions. Swan Lake and Car Man continued to be available on SkyArts with a combined viewing of 11,700.
We set up a new partnership with a film company, TEAFilms, which has enabled us to increase our digital capacity and made it easier to build digital into project plans from the outset. We want to continue to experiment with new ways of communicating that reflect our company ethos and ambition.
International
New Adventures is proud to be the biggest exporter of UK dance-theatre and annually tours its productions and delivers engagement projects across the globe.
91 Performances of Cinderella across the USA and Asia
122,988 live International Audiences
8,753 International Cinema Admissions
3 Curtain Raisers
12 Workshops
1,408 High School students attended a schools matinee in LA
670 International Participant Engagements
Live Performances
Cinderella continued its tour in 2018/19 to six international venues across Asia and the USA from 7 August 2018 to 10 March 2019, including Tokyo, Shanghai, Beijing, Washington, and Charlotte. The international tour ended in LA with a five-week season at the Ahmanson Theatre, where Matthew Bourne is an Associate Artist.
On the Big Screen
Cinderella was screened in cinemas in 15 territories internationally across Europe, North America, Russia, Japan and Australia.
Engagement & Participation
Curtain Raisers and workshops were delivered in Beijing, Shanghai and Washington with 144 participants. In Los Angeles, we delivered an ‘In Our Shoes’ experience and 12 schools workshops engaging 315 participants. In addition to the workshop activity in LA there was a schools’ Matinee performance followed by a post-show Q&A attended by 1,408 students.
Audiences
"It’s so important for all young people regardless of their backgrounds to access extraordinary art. Thank you New Adventures for enabling us to watch your triumph of a dance work!"
Rachel Deadman, Programme Director of The Dance Movement.
862 free tickets used for our project participants & low-engaged groups
29% first time attenders
62% of tour venues delivered audio described performances and touch tours
2,800 people attended a post-show Q&A
We continued to work with presenting venues to allocate 30 Audience Development tickets at each venue. These tickets have been given to less engaged groups and those who have not previously attended the theatre, particularly disadvantaged young people, as well as participants in our engagement projects.
Some of the young people had never seen a Ballet before and one girl had never been in a Sheffield theatre before despite being born in Sheffield. It was a great opportunity to allow young people access to the arts
Alice Watts, Group Leader at Gold Digger Trust
All contracts with touring venues contain a statement of the company’s commitment to accessibility and we encourage venues to offer audio described performances and touch tours. In 2018/19 there was a 40% increase in the number of audio described performances with 10 venues out of a possible 16 venues delivering audio described performances and touch tours.
Equality, Diversity & Inclusion
We strive to be inclusive and aim to achieve equality in all that we do.
30% of the Swan Lake performing company identify as BAME
24% of the Romeo and Juliet Local cast members and 18% of our professional cast identify as BAME
Our Board is made up of 5 females and 2 males. 4 of the 7 trustees identify as BAME
The narrative, non-verbal form of Matthew Bourne’s work makes it fully accessible to a broad range of people across cultures. The Creative Case for Diversity is a standing item on the agendas of all Board and Leadership Team meetings.
We increased the ethnic diversity of the staff team through the creation of an annual traineeship for a BAME individual recruited in partnership with Creative Access.
We launched regular sell-out dance classes for over 55s at Farnham Maltings from whom a performance group was created.
Subsidised or free places are offered on all of our talent development projects and we continue to review the level at which these are offered. Our Overture programme is fully subsidised for participants.
Finance & Governance
Our Arts Council England annual grant of £1,294,000 enabled us to reach 511,285 people nationally and internationally resulting in a per head subsidy of just £2.53.
INCOME
85% from show related and touring activity
11% from Arts Council England and donations from other supporters
4% from workshops and engagement projects
EXPENDITURE
91% on developing, producing and touring our shows
6% on workshops and engagement projects
3% on support costs
Registered Charity No. 1125342 Registered Company No. 06548321
Dancers
Nicole
Alphonce
Andrew
Ashton
Matthew
Ball
Benjamin
Barlow Bazeley
Alistair
Beattie
Stephanie
Billers
Callum
Bowman
Isaac
Peter Bowry
Will
Bozier
Cordelia
Braithwaite
Madelaine
Brennan
Tom
Broderick
Ben
Brown
Megan
Cameron
João
Carolino
João
Castro
Reece
Causton
Kayla
Collymore
Zanna
Cornelis
Freya
Field
Jackson
Fisch
Paris
Fitzpatrick
Keenan
Fletcher
Glenn
Graham
Michaela
Guibarra
Bryony
Pennington
Sophia
Hurdley
PJ
Hurst
Shoko
Ito
Jack
Jones
Nicole
Kabera
Daisy May
Kemp
Courtney
Liu
James
Lovell
Jonathon
Luke Baker
Katrina
Lyndon
Kate
Lyons
Michela
Meazza
Anjali
Mehra
Jack
Mitchell
Andrew
Monaghan
Liam
Mower
Stephen
Murray
Harry
Ondrak-Wright
Ashley-Jordon
Packer
Jack
William Parry
Matt
Petty
Barnaby
Quarendon
Edwin
Ray
Danny
Reubens
Sam
Salter
Mark
Samaras
Ashley
Shaw
Alex
Sturman
Catrin
Thomas
Alan
Vincent
Joe
Walkling
Katie
Webb
Stan
West
Max
Westwell
Seren
Williams
Milwhynne
Williams
Carrie
Willis
Dan
Wright
Backstage Crew
Sam Baker
Dylan Batdorff
Gemma Bishop
Amy Bond
John Campbell
Lisa Champion
Matthew Coombes
Jeremy Duncan
Harriet Finch
Rich George
Ken Hampton
Jo Hayes
Millie Johns
Kevin Kilmister
Kathryn Lewis
Duncan McLean
Andrew Meadows
Rich Mence
Aaron Nolan
Dominic Wright
Lucy Packham O'Brien
Javier Pando
Emily Radjen
Kyra Rossel
Scott Sheady
Pete Stocking
Tania Tonini
Chris Tonini
Gary Wall
Liam Walls
Steven Whittley
Claire Wilmore
Cameron Williams
Heather Wilson
Sammi Woollard
Dance Artists
Sam Archer
Ross Carpenter
Cindy Ciunfrini
Gavin Eden
Stephanie Elstob
Valentina Formenti
Adam Galbraith
Robin Gladwin
Heather Habens
Phil King
Dena Lague
Katy Lowenhoff
Luke Murphy
Emily Piercy
Mami Tomotani
Chloe Wilkinson
Shelby Williams
Leadership Team
Sir Matthew
Bourne OBE
Artistic Director
Robert
Noble OBE
Group Managing Director Etta
Murfitt MBE
Associate Artistic Director
Jennie
Green
Deputy Managing Director
Tour Management
Tom McEvilly, Technical Director
Simon Lacey, Company Manager (Cinderella)
Neil Westmoreland, Resident Director (Cinderella)
Ian Wheatstone, Company Manager (Swan Lake)
Pia Driver, Resident Director (Swan Lake)
Glenn Graham, Rehearsal Director (Swan Lake)
Associate Artists
Scott Ambler,
1960 - 2018
Founder Artistic Associate Lez
Brotherston OBE
Set & Costume Designer, Associate Artist Paule
Constable
Associate Artist, Lighting Designer
Terry
Davies
Composer, Associate Artist
Paul
Groothuis
Sound Designer, Associate Artist
Brett
Morris
Music Director & Principal Conductor, Associate ArtistTrustees
Jeanette Siddall CBE, Chair
Sean Egan
Brenda Emmanus OBE, Vice Chair
Helen Protheroe
Dr Kaneez Shaid MBE
Arielle Smith
Kenneth Tharp CBE
For Great Leap Forward Ltd
Jennie Green
Sara Cormack
Gemma Greig-Kicks
James Miller
Kayte Potter
Marketing, Advertising & Press
Elaine McGowan, EMG
Martin Gray, EMG
Simon Raw, RAW PR
Amy Barder, RAW PR
Partners & Supporters
New Adventures is a registered charity and our work would not be possible without the support from our principal funder Arts Council England, and collaboration with a wide range of organisations, funders and partners.
Click here to find out how to get involved and to be part of our future ambitions.
Individual Supporters
William Archer
AMP Shareholders Ltd
Linda Herd
Pieter Toerien
Partners & Supporters
UK & Ireland Venue Partners
International Venue Partners
