Dance Umbrella, London’s annual international dance festival is back this October and the family friendly show from Takeshi Matsumoto Club Origami is a sensory delight for under 5’s and their families.
Expect interactive fun with paper based activities, movement and lights as Matsumo invites audiences to create, imagine and explore whole new ways of thinking, playing and moving. On our visit to see the show at The Place the experience started before we were in the auditorium with paper and pens in the bar area, children scribbling and doodling, chasing paper airplanes or looking through binoculars they had just created. As we were invite inside the theatre we were encouraged to be in the moment, leave the digital world behind and take everything in.
Takeshi Matsumoto is a Japanese dance artist, performer and choreographer whose artistic practice is influenced by 和-Wa, harmony, peacefulness, quiet and contentment-focused ways of living that balances with others and environment. It felt like if we were attending on another day the atmosphere may be entirely different.
Dance, fashion and live music meet the magic of origami to sweep us up on a spirited and inspiring adventure in a land made purely of paper and play. The show is without words so great for little ones as it involves lots of movement, sound and facial expressions as a mode of communication. Club Origami is presented by Little Big Dance – a pioneering national initiative creating new dance work for under fives and their families, led by South East Dance in partnership with DanceEast, Take Art and Yorkshire Dance.
Club Origami offers the perfect way to introduce young children to the world of dance and the freedom of expression that comes with movement.
Club origami is on at Stanley Arts on Friday 8th of October, The Albany on Saturday the 9th of October, The Place on Sunday 10th October, Watermans Art Centre on Sunday 17th October and Artsdepot on Sunday 24th of October.
The full Dance Umbrella live programme can be found online at www.danceumbrella.co.uk.