Cambridge Contemporary Dance

Established in 2007, CCD is a collection of Cambridge-based dancers and dance artists bringing work to both traditional theatres and more unusual spaces in cambridge and East Anglia. Since its inception, the company has collaborated with choreographers including Isobel Cohen (Helix Dance), Katie Green (made by katie green) and Vanessa Fenton (Royal Ballet) as well as producing work in-house.

CCD was recently commissioned to produce a gala evening celebrating the 800th anniversary of the University of Cambridge in the iconic Senate House building, never previously used as a venue for public performance. The company have also performed in college cloisters and museum spaces as well as the more traditional theatre settings of The Junction, the Mumford Theatre and the ADC.

Please please please

“Woman! What does she want?” – Sigmund Freud
“If I could tell you that, I wouldn’t have to dance it.” – Isadora Duncan

Memory, identity, and desire: the things that define us and shape our view of the world are also slippery and ephemeral. The fleeting world of dreams transforms with every retelling; when it comes to choosing who we want to be, our very sense of self is unreliable... and sometimes, the thing we seek has been right in front of us all along.

Please please please makes solid some recent preoccupations with gender roles, expectations, (frustrated) desires and shadow-selves. The movement work is character-based, sometimes tender and sometimes confrontational, as it explores the shifting identities and changing relationships of three women seeking an unreliable truth.

Choreographed by Lise Smith
Dancers: Jennifer Hersch, Saba Hinrichs, Tzo-Zen Ang

Photos copyright Lise Smith, Duncan Grisby