After a two-year break, Cloud Dance Festival will be returning on 5 - 7 July, and for the first time, it will be held at the fantastic venue Bernie Grant Arts Centre in North London.

Remaining true to our ethos of supporting and promoting the most promising in new and emerging artists, all of whom are unfunded, we will be presenting a diverse range of new choreographers, choreographers to watch, Cloud Dance Festival regulars, and a couple of special guests.

Ella Mesma, who has recently completed an international tour of Russell Maliphant's The Rodin Project with Cloud Dance Festival alumnus Tommy Franzén, will be presenting her fierce solo EVOL, which has previously been presented at Breakin' Convention, while our other special guest will be Raymond Chai, who has worked with most of the leading ballet and contemporary dance companies in Europe, including Matthew Bourne's New Adventures, DV8, Hofesh Shechter, Random Dance, English National Ballet and Ballet Black. Raymond will be creating a duet with some outstanding dancers for this festival.

You may or may not know many of the other artists participating in this festival, but we anticipate that they'll become household names (depending on the household) in due course, including Paolo Mangiola, Sol Dans, Merritt Moore & Adam Kirkham, John Ross, James Finnemore, Ieva Kuniskis and Anna-Lise Hearn of AniCo.

An Italian choreographer and dancer, Paolo Mangiola joined Wayne McGregor | Random Dance in 2008, and his works have been presented at The Place, Sadler's Wells and the Royal Opera House. His solo 'Nuclear Romances' will be performed by the incredible dancer Fukiko Takase, who performed in Devaraj Thimmaiah's duet 'Arranged Marriage', which was one of the highlights of our last festival.

'A Timeless Duet' is a duet between BalletBoyz dancer Adam Kirkham - who is soon to join Russell Maliphant's company - and former Boston Ballet and Zurich Ballet dancer Merritt Moore, which was premiered at TEDx Oxford.

Ieva Kuniskis is a Lithanian choreographer whose premiere of 'Gone To Get Milk' was cited by Jeffrey Gordon Baker of London Dance as "an unusual and brilliant standout" and "she should definitely be on the watch list of potential bright spark choreographers to come out of Resolution! this year"; 'Gone To Get Milk' has since been presented at the prestigious Baltic Dance Festival, and elsewhere in Lithuania and Vienna.

John Ross is one of Cloud Dance Festival's featured artists; he received a nomination by What's On Stage for their Best Choreographer Award for his work with Old Vic New Voices, and he has worked with Dance United, Scottish School of Contemporary Dance and Tom Dale Company. His solo 'Man Down' was presented at the Cloud Dance Sundays launch in May 2013, and reviewers praised him as 'modern dance in its best form' (Londonist), 'watching Ross perform is a delight' (Cloud Dance Festival), "a gem" (Nicholas Minns, Writing About Dance) and 'for me the night’s highlight was Man Down. ... Man Down may seem small-scale, but it has sufficient scope and maturity to warrant another viewing.' (Donald Hutera, London Dance).

Joseph Toonga is about to graduate from London Contemporary Dance School, where he is currently on tour with their final-year performing company, LC3; in his first year of studies, he was awarded East London Dance's Blueprint Bursary, which enabled him to show his work at Stratford Circus, Sadler's Wells and The Place. He founded Just Us Dance Theatre in 2007, and his work has been shown at many festivals and platforms since then, including Live Vibe, Outspoken Dance and Cloud Dance Festival.

Further highlights include Cloud Dance Festival favourites Hana Saotome, James Finnemore and Sol Dans, who is collaborating with Great Lake Films to explore the intersection of film and the best in contemporary jazz dance.

Past Cloud Dance Festival participants have included Ballet Black, James Cousins, James Wilton, Joss Arnott, Mavin Khoo, Lila Dance, Drew McOnie, Tommy Franzén, Kristen McNally and Jonathan Goddard & Gemma Nixon - so we hope that this festival's artists will follow in their footsteps on their way onwards and upwards.


For the first time, we have launched a crowdfunding campaign to help us cover the costs of the festival so that we can use the proceeds of the festival towards supporting the artists participating in this festival, all of whom are unfunded and have received no financial support in creating or preparing their works for these performances. Here is the campaign, and we will be very grateful for any and all support you can offer: www.indiegogo.com/projects/cloud-dance-festival-the-return/x/1895304


Tickets can be bought via www.eventbrite.co.uk/event/7083044577, and tickets will be available on the door. Tickets will cost £12 / £10 concessions.

Bernie Grant's address is: Bernie Grant Arts Centre, Town Hall, Approach Road, Tottenham Green, London N15 4RX

The lineup for each evening is as follows; the show will start at 7.30pm each day and finish at approximately 9.45pm, with two intervals. Latecomers are always welcome.

Friday 5 July Saturday 6 July Sunday 7 July
Ella Robson Guilfoyle
AniCo.
Sol Dans
Exzeb
Paolo Mangiola
Ella Mesma
Merritt Moore and Adam Kirkham
Gary Rowntree
Hana Saotome
Kajdi
James Finnemore
John Ross
Raymond Chai
Ieva Kuniskis
Joseph Toonga (Just Us Dance Theatre)
B-Hybrid Dance
Ceyda Tanc Dance
John Ross
Ella Mesma
Raymond Chai