Luca Silvestrini/HeadSpaceDance Online

The double bill After the Interval and Before the Interval can be viewed on the following platforms:

Protein Dance
DanceEast
Northern Ballet/
Edge Hill University

All this year Luca Silvestrini's company Protein has been streaming works to mark its 21st anniversary, under the banner Protein21. Silvestrini is one of the most observant, original and thought-provoking dance-theatre makers working today, with a range that extends from a charming, child-friendly take on St Exupery's classic The Little Prince, to a meditation on immigration and how it feels to be foreign in Border Tales. And much else besides.

Now, Protein is streaming a double bill of works originally created for HeadSpaceDance: After the Interval and Before the Interval. Originally performed in 2012 and 2014 respectively, the works provide a glimpse into the lives of dancers offstage and backstage.

Both After the Interval and Before the Interval are sections from larger works, seen here together for the first time. They are performed by HeadSpaceDance, a dynamic small company directed by Charlotte Broom and Christopher Akrill, themselves excellent contemporary dancers.

After the Interval opens with the performers’ curtain calls, and continues with revivals of their past stage roles and steps, bringing to the fore the art of dance-making and the backstage lives of dancers.

In Before the Interval Christopher Akrill, Jonathan Goddard and Clemmie Sveaas take Broom's absence as a cue to promote their own talents as dancer-directors, projecting themselves into what their future selves could be.

Both pieces display Silvestrini's style of humorous dance-theatre.

The broadcast is presented in partnership with DanceEast, Northern Ballet and The Arts Centre at Edge Hill University, and features introductions by Luca Silvestrini and HeadSpaceDance’s artistic directors, Charlotte Broom and Christopher Akrill.