One Dance UK and BBC Arts have announced further artists and locations involved in Dance Passion 2022, as part of a wider host of dance programming on BBC TV, radio, iPlayer and Sounds.

Comprised of a digital box set on BBC iPlayer and a highlights programme on BBC Four, Dance Passion is a collaboration between BBC Arts and sector support organisation One Dance UK, shining a light on the UK dance sector - particularly its unique creativity, pool of world-class talent, and innovative approach to choreography and performance.

Pulling together talent across all four nations, Dance Passion features works across all genres (ballet to ballroom, contemporary to tap) from established and emerging companies such as The Royal Ballet, Ballet Black, Motionhouse, Rambert, Tap Attack, Birmingham Royal Ballet, Akram Khan, Candoco Dance Company, National Dance Company Wales, and Simple Cypher to name just a few. These pieces will be broadcast on iPlayer in five hour-long programmes, from four hubs across the UK: two live segments will be from Warwick Arts Centre in Coventry  - the current UK City of Culture - and three pre-recorded segments will come from Theatre Royal Plymouth’s TR2, Leeds’ Northern School of Contemporary Dance, and London’s Sadler’s Wells.

Dance Passion 2022 also includes fourteen BBC Arts and One Dance UK co-commissioned short films and interactive projects by UK-based professional and community dance companies, independent artists, choreographers, and associated technical partners based in dance education and dance medicine. These are the results of a large-scale open call to develop new dance, filming and digital talent, and specially-commissioned short film by New Zealand-born/Birmingham-based choreographer Corey Baker. For Dance Passion, Baker is creating an all-action dance adventure filmed on locations around the country. 

The short films explore themes such as dance as an intergenerational language uniting people in the efforts to tackle climate change; choreography as a way of expression in disability; and the relationship between the performance space and the digital dimension. The interactive projects, created using tools in BBC Connected Studio’s MakerBox suite, use technology to enable both hearing and deaf audiences to experience dance; explore the different physiological and bio mechanical demands of different dance genres; and immerse audiences in an interactive murder-mystery.