Phoenix Dance Theatre brings thrilling new mixed bill to Leeds Playhouse

Five dancers standing in formation with their left legs stretching forward as they lean back. They are wearing casual street clothes and the stage is dimly lit.

Phoenix Dance Theatre is set to thrill audiences at Leeds Playhouse from 31 March to 2 April with an exciting new mixed bill, Interplay, as part of an 18-date UK-wide tour.

Bringing together work by internationally acclaimed choreographers Travis Knight and James Pett (Pett Clausen-Knight), Ed Myhill, Yusha-Marie Sorzano, and Phoenix Dance Theatre’s Artistic Director Marcus Jarrell Willis, this dynamic programme celebrates creative collaboration, placing dialogue, contrast and connection at its heart.

Across duet and ensemble works, it explores themes of duality and shared authorship, revealing how distinct artistic voices can intersect to create something greater than the sum of their parts. Each piece offers a unique perspective, united by a bold physicality and a deep curiosity about human relationships, rhythm, and collective experience.

Marcus Jarrell Willis’s Next of Kin, which originally premiered in New York in 2013, has been newly reimagined for Phoenix Dance Theatre. The duet explores the subtle humour and tension between two kindred spirits navigating life together.

Ed Myhill’s Why Are People Clapping?! (restaged by Camille Giraudeau) is set to Steve Reich’s Clapping Music and uses rhythm as its driving force. With wit and precision, the choreography highlights the music of life – rhythm can be found in a tennis match, footsteps in an empty street and in the beat of our own hearts.

In Small Talk by Travis Knight and James Pett, two figures inhabit a shared yet distant space. Through quiet gestures and unresolved tension, the work reflects on relationships that fade not through catastrophe, but through the slow exhaustion of time. The work showcases a portrait of two people held in a fragile standoff, suspended between the familiarity of what once was and the truths they now refuse to acknowledge.

The mixed bill concludes with a powerful new collaboration by Yusha-Marie Sorzano and Marcus Jarrell Willis. Inspired by ritual, meditation and the roots of hip-hop and house culture, Suite Release reclaims dance as instinct, resistance and communal connection and joy, inviting audiences not only to witness movement, but to remember it.

Marcus Jarrell Willis, Artistic Director of Phoenix Dance Theatre, says:

I’ve always found it intriguing to observe dual artistic expression – the ways two creative minds come together and collaboratively work towards one goal in creation, while maintaining their individual artistic expressions. The programme consists of different forms of artistic duality, through choreographic voices, as well as the structure of the dance works themselves. I think it will be interesting for an audience to see a full programme that focuses on this particular theme (duality), while highlighting a range of different works.

I wanted to commission choreographers that have unique perspectives on what contemporary dance looks like today, which is what I believe Phoenix Dance Theatre stands for in this iteration of the company. While the works are all linked by the theme of duality, the mixed bill offers something for every audience member from any background to connect with. The choreographers themselves come from various backgrounds across the UK and internationally, providing the opportunity to see dance through multiple lenses.