Dance Edits is a dance scratch platform for new work to be tried and tested in front of a live audience. This is an opportunity to have a first look at new projects at an early stage of their development.

Come and join us for an evening where you can experience a range of different dance projects, meet the artists making then, and have a chance to join the conversations that shape their development journey.


HOLD YOUR OWN

Concept and Choreography: Eve Walker 

Dancers: Maria Giacchetto, and Jennie Fraser

With special thanks to Joel Everett, giving care and supporting the beginnings of this work

Take up space, wherever strength is found ​​

Find strength in stillness

Feel powerful. Be individual. Be a tribe of women.

Make your teenage self proud

Stand tall

Roll back the shoulders, don’t hide your chest

Don’t.

Say no. Say yes to things you want

Know the things you want and grab them

Be wholly you

Be bold

Be certain

Say no, and let it be known

Hold Your Own is a new dance work at the early stages of development. Building from choreographic interest in the Body as Archive, Hold Your Own safely explores negative memories of touch on the body and how this might move us. Impacted by experience, the work is an ode to a younger self, a work of advice and a safe space for exploration and discovery. Through gestural movement, structured material and considered parameters, Hold Your Own will soon take the form of a film involving dance and spoken word, looking at the body as a storage site and a tool for embodiment and power.


IN TIME

Kate Stanforth

In Time is a new work choreographed by Kate Stanforth in collaboration with dancers from The Worx College. Rooted in Kate’s lived experience as a disabled dancer and her commitment to inclusive practice, the piece explores the idea that progression is not linear and that every dancer moves through time at their own pace.

Kate Stanforth is a disabled dancer, choreographer, and founder of the Kate Stanforth Academy of Arts. Her work focuses on inclusive practice and authentic representation, including a recent partnership with The Royal Ballet School to provide termly inclusive ballet sessions. Kate creates opportunities for disabled and non-disabled dancers to train, perform, and create together.


BLOOD, SWEAT & TEARS

Aaron Markwell

Blood, Sweat & Tears is an autobiographical dance theatre performance about the journey of living with HIV and how it has affected my life since my diagnosis. The work has been developed through the creation of script and performance, which has been made using trauma-informed practices and features a mixture of dance, comedy and scripted voice-over performance. 

Blood, Sweat & Tears is an invitation into a world of visceral, hilarious tale-telling, where the audience can find moments of self-identification, relatability, tragedy and disbelief. 

Aaron Markwell is a dance artist and choreographer based in Newcastle Upon Tyne. He is a founding member of Dance Artists North East CIC, and is grateful for such a warm welcome from the North East dance scene. Aaron trained at Lewisham College, Trinity Laban and UAL: Central Saint Martins and has danced in work by Lea Anderson, Stephanie Schober, Greta Gauhe, Megan Brown and Struan Leslie. He has also performed in music videos and video game animation. He was artist in residence at Helix Arts in 2024, creating work around HIV awareness and engagement in association with the National AIDS Trust and North Tyneside Council. 

Content warning: this show contains detailed descriptions of medical procedures, simulated gore, bad language and suggestive movement.



BODY FIRST

Idea and Concept by Megan Brown

Performed by Megan Brown, Aaron Markwell, Eve Walker, Maria Giacchetto, Deane Ali

Choreographed by Megan Brown and Performers

Music by Mothlight

Body First is an experimental dance work co-choreographed by Megan Brown and the performers. Rooted in the idea of the body as our first home, the work unfolds through an improvised movement score that invites each performer to trace the architecture of “home” within their own bodies.

To arrive at home became an act of returning; to comfort, to trust to a sense of safety shaped by breath and sensation. It meant recognising the body as foundation and shelter, as archive and memory, as the place where belonging begins.

Across the process, a shared movement language has emerged—intimate, instinctive, and resonant. It is a vocabulary that feels deeply personal, yet universal, speaking to the quiet truth that before we learn the world, we inhabit ourselves.

This work was developed during Dance City’s Creative summer residency this year and has been reworked for Dance Edits.


JACK

Choreography by Alyssa Lisle

Performed by Alyssa Lisle

This work-in-progress piece is an exploration of loneliness, class and community. The work is inspired by real-life characters, full of charm and humour, the kind of big personality who can light up a room. Through movement, the work explores the moments when we hide, when we reveal ourselves, and what happens when the façade drops.

This work was developed during Dance City’s Creative summer residency this year and has been developed for Dance Edits.