Plays, poetry, workshops and dance at Curve festival

CURVE’S annual New Work Festival will returns tomorrow (Thursday).

The event, which runs until Sunday will showcase new plays, musicals, dance and spoken word pieces from more than 30 artists and arts organisations

Highlights on Saturday include Nicole Acquah’s Sankofa , which was shortlisted for the 2021 Women’s Prize for Playwriting, and the Midlands premiere of Katie Arnstein’s Sticky Doo.

Leicester writer-director Carol Leeming returns to Curve with theatre company Dare to Diva’s production of The Dreadful Dance of Ms Iniquity tomorrow. It is a choreographed poem by a fictional Black woman based on real events.

Curve resident creatives Tina Hofman and Jude Taylor will both feature as part of the line-up.

Also tomorrow, The Notnow Collective’s Pepper and Honey is a drama about the meaning of home, complete with live Croatian biscuit baking, performed by Tina Hofman.

On Friday, audiences can see Jude Taylor’s Is He Musical?, a musical comedy produced by MPTheatricals.

Curve associate company Nupur Arts will close the festival on Sunday with Dance Dhamaka 2022, a showcase of vibrant Indian dance performed by more than 120 young people.

Closed captioning via The Difference Engine will be available on selected events.

The festival will also feature workin-progress presentations as part of a Scratch Night on Friday and rehearsed readings of Dilan Raithatha’s Little India on Saturday and Emma-Louise Howell’s Patterns on Friday.

Over the four days audiences will also be able to see a programme of free entertainment from local artists on Curve’s New Work Festival foyer stage, including poetry, DJ sets, dance and live music.

Curve will also host a variety of workshops , including play-writing, with Royal Court-commissioned dramatist Emteaz Hussain, and artist surgeries, with Midlands creative and business development programme In Good Company.

Curve resident creatives Emmerson & Ward and Burnt Lemon Theatre will lead workshops on producing and how to set up a theatre company.

Curve’s chief executive Chris Stafford and artistic director Nikolai Foster said: “Over the past two years we have continued to work closely with our Curve resident creatives and local artists, and we are overjoyed to showcase their work with a season of new plays, music, events and readings, which are guaranteed to be entertaining, thought-provoking and ultimately inspiring. Now more than ever we need to support new work, so do join us, try something new and support this incredible team of artists, director and writers.”

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