Get ready for a stunning piece of visual theatre, because this September, two titans of the dance world, Marc Brew and Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, are bringing their acclaimed collaboration, an Accident / a Life, to London for its premiere.
This Sadler’s Wells co-commission will take the stage at the brand-new Sadler’s Wells East from Thursday 25 to Saturday 27 September, and it’s a show you won’t want to miss.
This powerful performance brings together storytelling, film, music, dance, and even a car to explore those pivotal, life-altering moments we all face. The starting point for the artists was an exchange of personal stories and key moments of change. For Marc, this was his life-altering car accident, a split-second event that transformed him from a ballet dancer to a paraplegic and cultivated a completely fresh approach to movement.
Don’t expect a somber affair, though, as the work uses humour and generosity to take the audience on a candid and ultimately life-affirming journey. It’s a testament to the resilience of the human spirit, earning two National Dance Award nominations in 2024 for Best Modern Choreography and Outstanding Male Modern Performance.
This unique dance production piece explores transformation, identity, and the search for home. It’s a story of incredible strength and artistic reinvention.
We had the privilege of sitting down with Marc to delve deeper into his creative process, the collaboration with Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, and the deeply personal journey behind an Accident / a Life.
Read on for our exclusive Q&A…
What inspired the collaboration between you, Marc Brew, and Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui for an Accident / a Life, and how did your shared life stories shape the creative process?
I knew that I wanted to make a new work in collaboration with another choreographer, and I have always admired Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui’s work after seeing his collaborations on Zero Degrees with Akram Khan and Sutra with Antony Gormley and the Buddhist Monks.
We first met over Zoom during COVID, and struck a mutual connection straight away. After speaking and getting to know each other, we discovered we had a number of similarities. For example, we both had strong relationships with our mothers, we are both queer, and we both had operations which left scars that told stories.
A pivotal moment in my life related to the car crash that I was in. Larbi asked me about it and we recorded the conversation. As a creative task, I watched it back and learnt the way I spoke about it, the gestures I used, the sounds I made and the fillers I included.
Following this, we received a residency in Germany at Staatstheater Darmstadt and Künstler*innenhaus Mousonturm. During this time, the story of the accident came to the forefront of the residency and so we explored movement and text from interviews that we had recorded and scripted.
Due to COVID, we thought we would make a film of it but this shifted. This is why the production has ended up being so cinematic.
How did your car accident and the resulting transformation in your relationship to movement influence the choreography and storytelling in this piece?
Being Disabled and paralysed from the chest down, my physicality creates new and interesting movement possibilities.
Larbi is fascinated with the body and how it moves so we would try out different movements whilst always centering care and consideration for my needs.
This work pushes me physically, emotionally and as a performer, however it is amazing to go on this journey every night and share my story through the medium of dance theatre.
The work encompasses many elements across cinema, theatre, design and dance, with a set design by Pepijn Van Looy that enables me to move across the stage and props without my wheelchair.
The performance incorporates a mix of dance, storytelling, film, music, and even a car. How do these elements come together to create the visual and emotional impact of the show?
It’s all encompassing and it all depends on every element coming together to create the different moments of the story we are telling. Larbi and the whole team – from visuals, set, costume, lighting, sound, captions, storytelling and choreography – have worked so close together to find the truth in each of the scenes and the best way to tell the story.
Larbi would often say “we have to support Marc and raise our game to what he is delivering on stage.” I feel we all raised our game and took on the challenge of creating the best show we could and that we are all most proud of. We all gave our artistry, time, care and belief in the work.
an accident / a Life has already received critical acclaim, including two National Dance Award nominations. What do you hope audiences in London will take away from its premiere at Sadler’s Wells East?
I would like them to go on the journey with me, to be captivated and moved by the work. I hope they will connect with the humanity, resilience, humour, strength of the human spirit and how, through tragedy, we can live a life.