Lucy Carter/Michael Hulls/Nitin Sawhney, No Body at Sadler's Wells

A first for the London dance venue, this inventive journey of exploration combines all the production elements of a successful dance performance – just without the physical presence of dancers.
Instead of watching bodies move from afar, audience members will engage with specially commissioned works created by leading composers, lighting designers and filmmakers who regularly collaborate with dancers and choreographers.
Lighting designer and Sadler’s Wells Associate Artist Michael Hulls has worked exclusively in dance for the last 20 years.
His commission, LightSpace is an immersive installation designed to challenge the mood and senses of everyone who encounters it. Theatre-goers can expect to be welcomed onto the main stage, where they will savour the opportunity to be under the spotlight and succumb to the intense ambiance that impressive lighting conjures up.
Accompanied by a soundscape composed by Andy Cowton and Mukul and video projection by Jan Urbanowski, LightSpace will be an absorbing and atmospheric contribution to the No Body programme.
Composer and Sadler’s Wells Associate Artist Nitin Sawhney’s middle name really ought to be ‘versatile’. Having established himself as a world-class producer, songwriter, DJ, multi-instrumentalist, orchestral composer and cultural pioneer, he straddles the realms of music, film, videogames, dance and theatre.
For No Body, Sawhney has collaborated with director, filmmaker and video artist Nick Hillel to create Indelible, a music, sound and animation trail.
The combination of music and intriguing projections will engender a sense of the many incredible artists who have graced Sadler’s Wells, allowing audiences to explore the DNA of the building itself.
Lighting designer Lucy Carter regularly teams up with choreographer Wayne McGregor and has also joined forces with the likes of Kim Brandstrup, Val Caniparoli, Javier De Frutos and Shobana Jeyasingh.
Her intimate installations for No Body, created in collaboration with composer Jules Maxwell, will appear in unusual places in the depths of the Sadler’s Wells building, shining a light on hidden backstage worlds and evoking new environments in existing everyday ones.
Bringing the focus back to the corporeal, and working together with filmmaker David Hinton, Siobhan Davies will present The Running Tongue.
Made in collaboration with sound artists, animators and 22 dance artists, footage of a running woman is played in a continuous loop, freezing at random intervals to reveal selected frames treated by each of the artists.
Combining collage, repetition, static and moving images, these frozen frames will unveil a scene embedded in reality. Audiences should expect to be awestruck by fleeting moments of strange, surreal and visually poetic activity.
Last but certainly not least, Sadler’s Wells Associate Artist Russell Maliphant’s No Body offering is a triptych installation inspired by Erebus, a film collaboration between Maliphant and directors Warren Du Preez and Nick Thornton Jones.

There will be a pre-show Director’s Conversation on Saturday 11th June from 4.30 – 5.15pm (£4): Alistair Spalding and the artists behind the concept of No Body will discuss the creative process behind this multi-installation experience. (BSL interpreted.)