Mimbre Youth Company at Sadler’s Wells

As followers of our blog know, our talented young acrobats from the Mimbre Youth Company have been selected to take part in RIOT OFFspring, at London’s  famous dance venue Sadler’s Wells. RIOT OFFspring is a unique collaboration between five international choreographers – Sébastien Ramirez, Ivan Blackstock (BirdGang), Simeon Qysea (BirdGang), Mafalda Deville and Pascal Merighi (Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch) – and an intergenerational cast, brought together to create a unique dance piece with a live orchestra playing Igor Stravinsky’s iconic The Rite of Spring. How exciting!

“On Tuesday in the morning we were working with Mafalda on floor work. We had to walk with our hands on the floor. It felt really tiring and good at the same time. The music started really relaxing but suddenly the music changed and went all terrifying, I really liked the music.

In the afternoon some of us were working with the teenagers. I was lucky enough to work with them, first we had to jump on their backs – and then they carried us like babies.

I like to work with the paper at the beginning of the piece, we put our hands out; it feels like I’m at a graveyard and dead bodies come alive!!!!!”

“Our first session at Sadler’s Wells was on Friday 5^th of April. We met the people who would be working with us, Simeon, Pascal and Mafalda. We did some work with Pascal and Mafalda. My favourite part of the day was when we worked with Simeon on dancing. We did some hard moves, but it was fun.”

“This week we got covered in paper which was fun, it was part of a dance. We also did a lot of movement on the floor, like shaking on our backs and on our belly. Plus, I got to do the worm through the paper. We also got carried away by the teenagers.”

“On Friday we created a clapping game, this was done by copying Simeon. We also did a dance routine. In one of our routines we split into groups and got our moves from the clapping game, my move was first.”

“In our rehearsal for the show we were all covered in newspapers. We lifted our arm up and I tried to reach as far as I could.”

“I had a great time working with the teenage group, when they carried me away. The pattern game was hard at first, but after a few days I got much better. I enjoyed playing with the papers.”

“First we put our hand up, and then we put it down. Second we started to shake on the floor. Next we walked around sideways on the floor… Mafalda called number six; I jumped up and threw papers.”