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The Acosta Dance Foundation’s Community-Based Performance Group brings together people of all ages, backgrounds, and levels of experience to explore the transformative potential of movement. Developed in collaboration with the Tanztheater Performance Group, this inclusive programme offers workshops, open rehearsals, and a final performance that celebrate creativity, diversity, and human connection.
Drawing on the principles of Tanztheater, participants engage with a rich range of movement practices that combine dance, theatre, speech, music, and everyday gesture. Rather than focusing solely on technique or conventional narrative forms, the programme encourages participants to draw upon personal experience, imagination, and expressive movement to create thoughtful and engaging performances that explore emotions, relationships, memory, and contemporary social themes.
Reflective Beings is a triple bill created by Tanztheater choreographer Adrian Look, with the support of Acosta Dance Foundation as part of its Education and Community Engagement Programmes.
Three different performance groups will present work around the human condition, all with a different emphasis.
Sunday 6 December at 3pm, at Woolwich Works, The Fireworks Factory, 11 No 1 Street,
Royal Arsenal, London SE18 6HD.
The UnHidden Self
(Morley Performance Group)
The UnHidden Self explores the parts of our character, appearance and psychology we do not want to show to others but keep hidden due to the fear of judgement or misinterpretation.
The Morley performance group is our longest running group with over 10 years of creating together. The unique blend of our intergenerational cast makes this one a poignant bridge between ideas and identities.
The Joys of (not) Knowing
(Acosta Dance Foundation)
Exploring the joy of knowledge and the quiet advantages of not knowing everything, this performance celebrates moments of freedom, curiosity and blissful ignorance. It asks how we find a balance between what we know about the world and ourselves, and the freedom that comes from not having all the answers.
Since 2023, the Acosta Dance Foundation Community Performance Group has brought together people of different ages, cultures and backgrounds through intensive workshops each term. Open to adults aged 18 and over, with no upper age limit or previous dance experience required, the group shares stories, experiences and ideas through movement and performance.
Made Up Worlds
(TTT – Tanztheater Thursdays)
If you could create your own little world, what would it look like and who would you let in? This is the main question for Made Up Worlds. A piece about the challenge of creating and maybe even imagining a fantastic world beyond our reality.
Over ten evening rehearsals at The Place, TTT creates a new piece each term catered to and created by the individuals that shape the term’s group. This term we have 15 performers from many different countries, experience levels and movement backgrounds.
Through performances such as Play in Motion, Paths Taken, House of Incertitude, and other immersive projects, participants in the programme has transformed venues including the Acosta Dance Centre, Woolwich Works, Punchdrunk, and Artillery Square into dynamic spaces for artistic exploration. Whether through intensive projects or ongoing weekly workshops, participants collaborate across generations, sharing stories, cultures, and perspectives through movement and performance.
Performances have attracted audiences of between 50 and 130 people, creating meaningful opportunities for community engagement, artistic exchange, and cultural participation. Together, these activities have fostered a strong sense of belonging and connection, bringing individuals and communities together through shared creative experiences and reflecting the Foundation’s commitment to making dance accessible, inspiring, and empowering for all.
Adrian Look works primarily through a Tanztheater (dance theatre) approach, creating performance groups that explore identity, diversity, and creativity. His practice is inspired by Pina Bausch’s Questioning & Answering method and is open to participants of all levels and backgrounds.
Born in Oberhausen, Germany, Adrian holds an MA in Dance Theatre from Folkwang University. He has worked internationally with companies and artists, including Tanztheater Bielefeld, Guilherme Botelho / Alias Company, Vaguement derrière (Simone Sandroni), Deja donné, The Tempting Innocence, and Rainer Behr on Herbstzeitlose (Pina Bausch).
Based in London since 2014, Adrian has been teaching and producing extensively across the UK. He regularly leads classes and workshops at The Place, Trinity Laban, Chisenhale Dance, Siobhan Davies, and Greenwich Dance. He is a lecturer at Morley College and The Place, and a visiting lecturer at the University of Bedfordshire, the University of East Anglia, Trinity Laban, and Rambert School.