Dance Umbrella, London’s annual international dance festival, has announced that it will return this October with a number of live, in-person performances for the first time since 2019, alongside a collection of digital events aimed at sparking conversations, inspiring creativity and celebrating choreographic talent. 

Dance Umbrella will take place from 8-24 October across the capital. It will aim to widen the offer of diverse work and championing artists to find new ways of working collaboratively. The new twin-track programme of live and digital work reflects the festival’s ongoing aspirations, but also indicates a new direction and some fresh perspective, with Dance Umbrella debuts from many independent artists. It will celebrate many different forms of dance as a hybrid event of live performances and digital explorations. 

The live programme includes performances from the visual artist and theatre-maker Dimitris Papaioannou, and a Dance Umbrella Festival debut from Japanese artist Takeshi Matsumoto with a new sensory show for under 5s. Dance Umbrella continues to expand the reach of its work in outer London Boroughs as it travels to Bell Square in Hounslow to present a live outdoor work created by performance-maker Ahilan Ratnamohan and a brand new piece from Dance Umbrella’s Assemble project with West Thames College by Becky Namgauds and tyroneisaacstuart.

Image Credit: Left to right: photo by Summer Dean; photo by Joshua Morris; photo by Sophie Bradbury; photo Vimel Budhev; photo by Camilla Greenwood; photo by Julian Mommert