Illuminate 2018

Last year Manchester dance company, Company Chameleon celebrated their 10th anniversary, and ten years of being an integral part of the vibrant arts and culture scene in Manchester. To mark the occasion, the company fused new dance with music and light art to create an extraordinary site-specific piece, at Manchester’s majestic Central Library.

Following the complete sell-out success of Illuminate at Central Library in the autumn, Company Chameleon are set to perform extracts from the original production for a three-night winter tour of branch libraries.

Each performance will be followed by a post-show Q&A and the opportunity to find out more about Company Chameleon and their work.

Illuminate takes its inspiration from the work of Christopher Brooker, a critic and co-founding editor of Private Eye. In 2004, Booker published his gargantuan 34-year-long labour of love; The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories. In it he argues that all stories, from Beowulf to The Ugly Duckling, can be boiled down to one of seven archetypal plots: Overcoming the Monster, Rags to Riches, The Quest, Voyage and Return, Comedy, Tragedy, and Rebirth. Illuminate takes inspiration from this work and explores these narratives through exhilarating and original dance and movement.

For three unique evenings, Company Chameleon will take over 3 local libraries – Longsight Library, North City Library and Wythenshawe Forum Library – to question the role that stories play in helping us to understand ourselves and our place in the world.

During this captivating promenade performance, six dancers will be performing four scenes, in four different spaces, within each local library. Transforming and breaking the conventions and perception of a literary space, Illuminate promises to be a highly unique journey around a local library after-hours.

This is a wonderful opportunity to experience a show that you may have missed the first time around. With creative staging, innovative choreography and skilled performances – Illuminate promises to be an unforgettable and exhilarating experience.