Arts & Lectures
2005-2006 Performing Arts Season News Release
For Immediate Release

January 10, 2006

The cutting edge British physical theatre company Stan Won’t Dance performs the U.S. premiere of its work Sinner at UCSB Campbell Hall

Summary Facts:

Stan Won’t Dance, hailed as “the new face of British dance theatre” (The Guardian), will present the U.S. premiere of its powerful work Sinner on Wednesday, February 22 at 8 pm at UCSB Campbell Hall. Combining text by Ben Payne, associate director of the Birmingham Repertory Company, high-octane choreography and video, Stan Won’t Dance breaks the rules about what dance and theatre can be. Sinner, subtitled “a self-destructive solo for two men,” shatters the limits of physical and emotional endurance while exploring society’s need to construct icons of absolute good and evil. With a ripped from the headlines immediacy, Sinner was created as a response to the 1999 SoHo pub bombings by David Copeland who planted homemade nail bombs aimed at London’s black, Asian and gay communities. Dance Europe called the work “intoxicating, full of power and urgency,” claiming “everyone should see this.”

Stan Won’t Dance was formed in 2003 by Ellie Beedham (executive director), Liam Steel and Rob Tannion (joint artistic directors), who met in 1999 while working on the stage version of DV8 Physical Theatre’s The Cost of Living, originally commissioned by Sydney 2000 Olympic Arts Festivals. (Neither Steel or Tannion appears in the film version of The Cost of Living, which Arts & Lectures screened in spring 2005.) Although Steel and Tannion had been working as core collaborators in DV8 since 1994, it was at this time that they realized that they had a shared desire to set up a new company to develop their own creative ideas that pushed the established boundaries of dance and physical theatre and which incorporated text and music in the creative process. The first piece made under the new company name was Sinner, which premiered in the UK in 2004.

Liam Steel works as a performer, director and choreographer and performed the role of Robert in the original tours of Sinner. For eight years he was a core member of DV8 Physical Theatre as both a performer and assistant director, working on productions including MSM, Enter Achilles (including the award-winning film version), Bound to Please, The Happiest Day of My Life and The Cost of Living. Other performance credits include work with Nottingham Playhouse, Manchester Royal Exchange, Roundabout Theatre Co., Gay Sweatshop, Royal National Theatre Studio, The David Glass Ensemble and Complicité. Steel’s recent directorial/choreographic work includes Dirty Wonderland, Brighton International Festival/Frantic Assembly, Hymns, Lyric Hammersmith/Frantic Assembly, Pericles, RSC/Cardboard Citizens Theatre Co., The Fall of the House of Usher, Graeae Theatre Company, Sparkleshark, Royal National Theatre, and The Secret Garden, Beauty and the Beast, Tom’s Midnight Garden, The Ghosts of Scrooge, Library Theatre, Manchester. Presently he is creating Knots for Cois Ceim Dance Theatre/Dublin Theatre Festival.

Robert Tannion, a London-based director, performer and choreographer, is currently working as Associate Choreographer to Peter Darling on the stage version of Lord of the Rings, which is due to open in March 2006 in Toronto. His work has includes collaborations with DV8 Physical Theatre, Complicité and Russell Maliphant. In 2002 and 2003 Robert was short listed for the larger Jerwood Choreography Award, London. Robert was Artist in Residence at London’s South Bank Centre in 2003-04 and Stan Won’t Dance now has this honor for 2005-06. His current collaboration with Austrian cross media artist Klaus Obermaier resulted in Apparition which has toured internationally in 2005 and 2006 to great acclaim. His screen credits include the International Emmy-winning Stig of the Dump (BBC 2001), Resident Evil (2001), the short “Function at the Junction” (2001), the International Emmy-winning dance film Enter Achilles (1996), and with Ricochet Dance Co. The Truth (2003).

Performer Ben Wright, who is playing the role of Robert on the U.S. tour of Sinner, trained at the Ballet Rambert School. In 1991 he joined Adventures in Motion Pictures to create Town and Country and Spitfire with Mathew Bourne. The show toured nationally and culminated in a spell at the Royal Court Theatre in London. Later that same year Wright joined London Contemporary Dance Theatre, where he worked with Mark Morris, Christopher Bruce, Amanda Miller and others. After the closure of LCDT, he went on to work with The Richard Alston Dance Company and Amanda Miller’s company Pretty Ugly. In 1995 he was invited to study as a scholarship student with The Trisha Brown Company and later that same year returned to England to create the role of the Prince in Matthew Bourne’s production of Swan Lake, which he would perform world-wide to great critical acclaim. In 2000 Wright became a member of Ricochet Dance Company where he worked with Shockheaded Peter’s director Phelim McDermot, Russell Maliphant, Gary Carter and Stephen Petronio.

Performance-goers are invited to stay after Sinner for a Meet-the-Artists discussion.

Stan Won’t Dance is presented by UCSB Arts & Lectures and sponsored by the Franciscan Inn. The event is generously supported by the Towbes Foundation. Tickets are $35 for the general public and $19 for UCSB students who must show valid ID at ticket purchase and the evening of the show. Ticket prices are subject to convenience fees. Tickets are on sale now and can also be purchased at the door, if still available.

For tickets or more information,
call UCSB Arts & Lectures at (805) 893-3535.

Editor: For photos, please call
George Yatchisin at (805) 893-3494.

©2006 UCSB Arts & Lectures, University of California, Santa Barbara