2023 was a special year and It’s hard to believe that a decade has passed since the beginning of Autin Dance Theatre. Throughout these years, we have been on a great journey, working with talented performers, artists, schools, and communities. Our mission was always to inspire and empower change through dance and storytelling and we couldn’t be prouder of our achievements.
And, that’s not all, we filled stages and promenades touring across UK and Europe during the summer but we also spent time in our community sharing our outreach dance, movement and puppetry programmes.
Our most acclaimed performance – Out of the Deep Blue has visited a record number of locations! Both our talented teams, Atlantic and Pacific, have reached audience in over 40 venues. This year meant that more than 750,000 people have seen our performance since we first created it.
With the beautiful end of the 2023 tour in the Caldmore Community Gardens – Eko, wowed the crowed dressed in lights in the last procession of the year.
‘Violet and the Sea Giant’
‘Violet and the Sea Giant’ book sold out its first print edition this summer and pushed us to create a new edition which is already having a huge interest, and we are extremely happy that so many children fell in love with this story.
In 2023, we proudly introduced our newest piece, Parade – The Giant Wheel. This moving performance inspired by the beauty, power, and impact of people from different walks of life coming together, featuring a 12-foot tall Giant Wheel powered by 6 street artists and accompanied by music and a large community cast of local groups and individual performers.
The performance showcased our unique blend of contemporary storytelling, striking physicality and innovative large designs to transport audiences and communities along a carefully choreographed procession.
It was an unforgettable first tour of the Parade, and currently we’ve entered a new and exciting phase of its development bringing now 6 street artists to the wheel. Keep your eyes peeled on our socials to witness a new vision and expansion of co-creatin with local communities bringing local community leaders ‘guardians’ on our 2024 tour.
Once again we have returned with Street Games – an inclusive and accessible fun day of street games, live music and dance with BSL Performance and Interpretation.
We have visited 3 new community events bringing games from around the world where we involved all the audience members, hosted by 3 fabulous Game Hosts and party music sets from EIF Sound and Music throughout the day with some surprise appearance of Eko.
We created a special performance of The Flock a culmination of an inclusive dance, movement & puppetry project with 3 Birmingham primary schools and over 130 children, young people, teachers and assistants from Bellfield Infant School, Bellfield Junior School & Longwill School For Deaf Children.
Another important project we decided to take on in the past year was ‘Brum Pro Class Inclusion Project’ partnership – project bringing together a group of people with lived experience, consultants, partner organisations and professional practitioners to learn and share alongside 20 regional dance artists around inclusion and access in a professional dance practice context.
We are working at building a robust, inclusive, and empowered dance leadership in Birmingham and the West Midlands. Our project is supporting the professional dance community to upskill in meeting access needs for dance artists with visible and invisible disabilities.
We are always striving to improve our work’s accessibility and learn about what we can do as a company to be and work more inclusively. We are striving for a more diverse work force for not only our company but for the sector.
Other commissions
Our creative director Johnny Autin is always helping the company grow. He shares his skills and knowledge through number of commissions and collaborations.
Micro Rainbow
Just this year he had continued to work with Micro Rainbow towards the delivery of body and movement sessions for LGBTQ+ and migrant community in the region.
Tales from Acorn Wood Live
Johnny has once again joined Norwell Lapley Productions (NLP) and returned as a choreographer & puppetry director alongside director Brad Fitt for ‘Tales from Acorn Wood Live’ on tour across the UK.
Echo Eternal
This January we worked with with Core Education Trust and Birmingham Opera Company to explore how to bring our survivor testimonies and echoes to larger public audiences and spaces. On the 25th and 26th January 2023, students from across the Echo Eternal schools performed at Birmingham New Street Station.
Education Programme
And we continued working with school and universities nationwide, bringing choreography and movement workshops to schools across the region such as The Streetly Academy, King Edward VI College, Tile Cross Academy, Princethorpe Infants and Nursery School.
Lantern Spectacular
Collaborating with the Ashbourne Festival and puppeteer Andrew Kim from Thingumajig Theatre we have been engaged in puppetry and movement workshops with various local communities.
The culmination of these efforts was a dazzling light trail procession nearly half a mile long, day filled with music, radiant lights, and mesmerising puppetry, all proudly carried aloft by local children and community groups.
Thank you all for being a part of this journey.
We are fortunate to have such great audience members, performers, staff, interns and many supporting us organisations who continue to join us.
We’re excited about the upcoming 2024 tour and want to be sure that we are working hard to bring you the very best artistic performances and community engagement programmes.
And we hope to see you all next year.
