The busy team at Riverside Studios have started the new year in force with a suite of wellness activities, creative workshops, an art exhibition and three theatre productions that are guaranteed to break the winter blues.
From regular guitar club practice, ballroom dance, yoga and ballet classes to painting and sculpting workshops there is something for everyone.
Rock Up Guitar Club brings together season and beginner guitar players in sessions led by professional guitarist Leu Appleyard world-class musician and educator with a wealth of experience.
Line and Ballroom Dancing will complement the existing current classes, including: Bollywood Dance, Balletcise, Pilates, Dancercise, Yoga and Sound Bath classes.
For all with an interest in hands on creative arts, there are still life workshops (painting classes) and sculpting workshops. During this period Riverside will be hosting Urban Canvas, an exciting exhibition featuring a diverse collection of works from emerging young artists aged 19-26. This vibrant showcase highlights the innovative and dynamic talent of the next generation, offering a unique glimpse into contemporary art through a variety of mediums that include tattoo work, bronze sculpture, and mosaic.
And as this is one of the finest venues known for its performing arts, this Try January season, the Psychonaut Theatre launches their Sessions By Makers For Makers, which feature many performing arts workshops, including; The Dance of the Actor: Building Stage Presence on January 12, focusing on developing stage presence, precision, and the ability to connect with others; Exploring the Boundaries of Art in Performance on January 19, aiming to conceptually understand contemporary performance art while expanding your practical creative toolkit; The Artist as Producer on January 25, a workshop made for artists of any discipline and level, who want to develop their artistic brand and identity; Playwrighting: Developing Ideas for Stage on February 2, aiming to give practical tools to assist you in nurturing your ideas from inception to stage.
Other workshops at Riverside include Introduction to Performance Arts on January26 and Introduction to Clown on January 19, both led by clown Athena Amoret.
Theatre
Riverside will also be host to exciting new theatre shows this January. As previously announced, Phizzical Productions presents Shahid Iqbal Khan’s Olivier nominated play, 10 Nights, from Wednesday 8 January – Sunday 26 January 2025. “Slow-burning, smartly written” (The Stage), the story follows Yasser as he embarks on his spiritual journey when he decides to take part in itikaf. Performed in English with some Urdu and Arabic references.
Small Beer Theatre Company brings Madison Cole’s Inferna to Riverside Studios for its world premiere. Inspired by true events, the story explores themes of autonomy and perseverance and follows a 15-year-old girl who becomes pregnant and is forced by her hyper-religious mother to carry out a pregnancy she has no say in a church-run maternity asylum. The show will play at the Studio 3 from Tuesday January 28 – Saturday 1 February.
Another New Year treat includes Sex Education’s Asa Butterfield’s stage debut in Barney Norris’s Second Best, running for four weeks only from 24 January 2025. Based on David Foenkinos’ best-selling novel of the same name, “An exquisitely bittersweet comedy of life’s missed opportunities“, (Jonathan Coe), this playful yet poignant new comedy follows Martin, who narrowly missed out on the role of Harry Potter as a child, as he is about to become a father, prompting him to reflect on that pivotal moment of his life and ask himself what his life might have been in another world.
Further information and booking links can be found here. For our selection of London theatre and performing arts shows for children and families please visit our shows page.