So, in our story, we have a family who are living a simple and peaceful life. They are celebrating love, a wedding and the union of their eldest son and a young woman from the village. It is a familiar and relatable setting. I wanted to create a sense of peace and harmony before breaking the family apart and to show how their situation could so easily be our situation.

In addition to this, I wanted to look at what war and escaping from war, becoming a refugee, being torn from family, loved ones and home, can do to a person. To explore the effects of trauma, but also to show incredible strength and resilience. To show what human beings are able to survive and overcome. I wanted to show how it is innate for us as humans to rebuild and reconnect and find ways to cope, even in the darkest of times. We see this primarily through the four main characters - Leto, Mati, Tana and Roxanne. We follow their journeys until they are able to find peace, love and a sense of belonging.

Imagery is really key for me and I take a lot of inspiration from pictures that have a lasting impact on me – whether that be a real-life picture or even sometimes a fashion or artistic picture.

Set, Lighting, Costume, Video and Sound Design were so crucial in bringing the story to life. For example, in the scene Inshallah, where the family are in the boat travelling across the sea, that moment epitomises all Departments working together in harmony. All the contributing factors enable the audience to be fully transported and believe we are actually watching people travelling and not a group of dancers on a stage.

I was also really excited to work with dancers that had come from different types of training backgrounds and could bring their influences to the table. We were so fortunate to have an incredible cast of talent and working with them every day was one of the highlights of the production for me. It was a wonderful environment where we all learnt from each other.

I was also keen to have dance audiences from different genres under one roof and to enable people who were more familiar with hip hop theatre to watch contemporary dance and vice versa.

About Kate Prince

A Message From Kate   

Synopsis

Cast, Creatives + Crew 

The Creative Process – From Page To Stage

Creative Intentions + Themes

Collaborating With Other Choreographers

Sting - The Music

A Deep Dive Into The Creative Effects

Further Workshop Opportunities 

Useful Resources And Final Messages

Who actually creates those steps depends on the style of the dance. Some sections I would create, some Lukas would create and some, the assistant choreographers, Tommy and Lizzie, would create with me. I am limited in my ability as a dancer and really need to collaborate when it comes to partner work, floor work and technically difficult movement. My imagination can see it, my brain can explain it… but I can’t actually do it!

When Lukas created the duet in Act Two to ‘Fields of Gold’, I wasn’t even in the room. He knew the moment, he understood the characters - I just let him know there was a singular shaft of light that was going to go diagonally from upstage right to downstage left, that Leto would be sat with his head in his hands and that Roxanne would initially dance down that shaft of light until she got to him. I let Lukas know where it needed to end to connect to the next moment of the show and a couple of motifs we needed to repeat and then he went and made the piece. We both knew exactly what the story beats were that needed to be included. What Lukas created is beautiful.

We then underwent a massive casting process, across the UK, Europe and beyond. As with all ZooNation productions, I knew the company must be diverse. I wanted to find exceptional talent who were at the top of their game, in whatever style of dance that might be. I wasn’t looking for ‘contemporary’ dancers, or ‘Hip Hop’ dancers – I just wanted an incredible group of individuals. They had to be really comfortable at freestyling, very adaptable and willing to learn new styles, and above all - to be storytellers. I was in awe of some of the talent we were lucky enough to find.

The dancers who joined the company were very open minded, patient, supportive and interested in learning new skills. They would often stay late after rehearsal had finished to train more in other styles – they were incredible. It was a skills exchange environment that everyone wanted to be a part of.

A good example of this would be how Anna Holmstrom, who played the Mother, and Gavin Vincent, who played the Father, worked together. Anna is classed as a contemporary dancer and Gavin is a B-Boy. They trained together a lot - creating duets and movement that would compliment each other’s shapes, learning how to mirror each other’s movements but in a different style and they quickly found a beautiful flow together.

I think it would be fair to say that there were moments in the rehearsal room that every dancer felt a bit out of their comfort zone and had to work a bit harder as they learnt something new, but that is what made them such a special group of people to work with. Each and every one of them persevered, with the help and support of each other.

We also supported this environment for learning new styles by focusing a lot on warm-up and training sessions, which would include Hip Hop styles and a weekly ballet class which everyone took part in.

Each dancer was given a diary and a character name. We worked through the story in chronological order and each day I would tell them something new about their character and what they were about to experience. In response, the dancers wrote in their diaries ‘in character’, imagining how they would feel. I wanted the dancers to be thinking about story before steps, story before music, story before anything else.

For at least the first week of rehearsal, whilst we covered the opening scenes in the village and the wedding, all the dancers were having a lovely time. Their diary entries were positive. Life was good. When civil war came, it brought with it death. I then told Gavin who played Quest, the father, that he was about to die. As the story developed, each day I would give them more information and ask them to write about it in their diaries.

“Roxanne, you are going to be kidnapped by militia”

“Gaia, you fall out of the boat and without a life jacket, you drown”

“Tana, you are about to be separated from your brothers”

The happy village was destroyed and the dancers kept taking hit after hit to their characters. It was a really interesting and different process and I think it really helped the dancers to be invested in the story.

Towards the end of the eight week rehearsal process, we did a diary sharing and they read extracts to each other, reminding them how they had felt. We have kept the diaries and will share them with future cast members, with the intention of trying to stay connected to the story and respecting the refugee story we are telling which is based on truth.

Work with professional ZooNation artists and explore the signature styles of contemporary and breaking to the music of Sting.

• Individual workshops available both in person and digital from £105*

• Workshop and Q&A packages available from £150*

• Duration: 1 hour - Full day (subject to requirements)

• Bespoke performance project packages also available

Our teachers are the best within the industry, and all are working professionally as dancers and choreographers. All teachers complete regular training with the company to prepare them for their teaching work and all company teachers have a recent DBS check. We also welcome bookings from groups with special or additional needs. ZooNation is committed to enabling all participants to engage in workshops, equally and with dignity and respect.  

For more information on how to book your workshop or rent the production please get in touch with us as workshops@zoonation.co.uk 

*Travel costs and VAT not included

Documentaries

• Imagine... Kate Prince: Every Move She Makes (2020)

• Escape from Syria: Raina's Odyssey (2017, Guardian)

Online 

• https://zoonation.co.uk  

• https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcqlShZlRxNnDg0kQ2zLfGMiv6z2rppDd&si=mqU8fFsBAYUU6CY1

• https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcqlShZlRxNmud2EYXwO7NXW17iYK5kQ9&si=biCYZtto3YDi8GFa

• https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcqlShZlRxNnQZunKIanYpBqHAb-_YZU6&si=jUN4cv8kvNd5EGkw

• http://bit.ly/HistoryofHipHopDance  

• https://cdmt.org.uk/accredited-professional-Training  

• https://www.casarotto.co.uk/clients/kate-prince 

Books

• Being a Dancer: Advice for Dancers and Choreographers by Lyndsey Winship 

• High Kicks: The Essential Guide to Working as a Dancer by Donna Ross 

• The Theatre Careers Handbook by Stage Jobs Pro 

Productions with ZooNation: The Kate Prince Company include: Into the Hoods, Some Like It Hip Hop, The Mad Hatter’s Tea Party, Groove on Down the Road, ZooNation: Unplugged, Sylvia and Message in a Bottle. The company has also created special performances for Nelson Mandela’s 90^th Birthday celebrations held in Hyde Park 2008, the 2011 Laurence Oliver Awards, and the Beijing Olympic and Paralympic Handover ceremonies in 2008. 

Kate’s TV credits include Strictly Come Dancing, So You Think You Can Dance, Top of the Pops and Ant & Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway. She recently choreographed the feature film of Everybody’s Taking About Jamie, for which she was also the choreographer of the stage show. Kate received an Olivier Award nomination for Best Theatre Choreographer for the production. In total her extraordinary work has been nominated for three Olivier Awards, A South Bank Sky Arts Award, A What’s On Stage Award, and two Critics’ Circle National Dance Awards.  

Kate has an MA from Edinburgh University and an honorary PHD from Winchester University, and in 2019 she received an MBE for services to dance in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list. 

Kate x 

In a village in a country far away, the community live well and support each other. But when civil war breaks out, this idyll of existence is devastated as the community is broken and homes destroyed.

We follow the fortunes of a father, mother and their three teenage children – Leto, Mati and Tana – who face this brutal reality together.

They are confronted with impossible choices. In order to survive, they must leave their homeland and undertake a perilous journey to safer shores. Along the way, they will be separated from each other and have to persevere alone.

Inspired by the passionate, evocative and iconic music of Sting - Message In A Bottle is a universal story of loss, fear, survival, hope and love.

After an initial pitch of the bare bones of an idea to Alistair Spalding, the CEO of Sadler’s Wells, I found myself in a meeting with Eliza Lumley (the Head of Theatre at Universal UK) and Sting himself, talking through my ideas. It was a somewhat surreal moment in my life, and I was really very nervous to be in a room with someone I was a massive fan of. Sting was really lovely and listened to my idea. He was very open and from that meeting, we got his permission to do a workshop to further explore the concept.

I then spent two weeks in a studio with fourteen dancers, working with a few of his songs and beginning to build the framework of a narrative connecting his songs together.

Sting came to see the workshop at the end of the two weeks. He said he was “moved” by the work and later said in an interview:

“The response for me was very emotional not just because I was honoured that they were using my music to express something, but there was something happening at a deeper level beyond understanding. It was moving me in ways that I couldn’t quite interpret. I have had very little experience of dance so being moved was what led me to say yes, carry on. I was just intrigued by it.”

After we had the green light from Sting and his team, I started to move forward in the process.

Over the course of the next two years, I listened to Sting’s huge catalogue of music and gradually my ideas for narrative started moving in an unexpected direction. I had been deeply impacted by an image in the media, which subsequently went viral, of a small child named Alan Kurdi, who at the time was roughly the same age as my own daughter. His little body was washed up on the shore in Greece. He had drowned whilst trying to make the journey in a dinghy from Syria. The image haunted me and I couldn’t shake it off. It felt too personal, too important for me to just scroll to the next news item and forget about him. It sparked a deep desire in me to learn more about the situation, more about Syria and more about refugees and their stories.

Some people may find this image upsetting.

With special thanks to Sadler’s Wells and Universal Music UK for their collaboration and continued support.

A Sadler’s Wells and Universal Music UK Production. Co-produced with Birmingham Hippodrome and The Lowry, Salford.

Research and Development for the production is supported by The MOVEment, a dance producing partnership between Birmingham Hippodrome, The Lowry, Salford and Sadler’s Wells. Supported by Arts Council England, The MOVEment aims to nurture talent and bring large-scale dance productions to even wider audiences.

Now I had the story arc and themes more clearly in my mind, I needed to go through a new process to knit that story together with the music. This was quite different to my previous productions, where the story comes first, and I have either written the music around it or used multiple artists and songs to tell that story. This time, because the songs already existed, I had the challenge of trying to marry music and narrative, without it feeling forced. What I found was that it wasn’t as simple as ‘listen to Sting’s music and lyrics and make a show out of them’ and it wasn’t as straightforward as ‘write a story about a family of refugees’.

I would best describe how I arrived at creating the final piece by using the analogy of a piece of string. If you think of a long piece of string with a bow tied exactly at the centre. The bow represents choreography, dance and steps. At one end of the string are the music and poetry. At the other end of the string is a story about a family of refugees. I gradually moved each element closer and closer to meeting each other in the centre. When they get to the middle, they can undo the bow… and that’s when the choreography can start.

Sometimes in the process, the music would inform the story and sometimes the demands of the story meant I was searching Sting’s catalogue looking for a song that would serve the drama. Sting’s music has a lot of emotional intention already and I wanted to really maintain that and keep the arrangements as pure and original as we could.

Some songs gave me direct inspiration for story, ‘Don’t Stand So Close to Me’ for example. If you listen to the original version, the intro is quite haunting and sinister and made me feel something bad was about to happen, like an evil force entering a space. This inspired the idea of militia arriving into the peaceful village, bringing with them a darkness the villagers had not known before.

Sting’s most famous song, in fact the most played song ever by any artist on American radio, is ‘Every Breath You Take’. We decided to do a new arrangement of this song to try and move away from the stories associated with it. Some see it as a love song, some see it as a song about a stalker and some associate it with the Puff Daddy song about the death of Biggie Smalls. Either way, the song came with ‘story baggage.’ Alex Lacamoire wrote a stunning new arrangement and Sting recorded new vocals to go with it. We used it to show the bond and love between the three siblings after they have been separated inside a refugee camp. They are saying to each other ‘Wherever you are in the world, I’ve still got you, I’m still there for you, I’ll be watching you’: a slightly different intention to the original song and Alex’s arrangement portrayed this new meaning beautifully.

On the whole, I found the process of marrying the music and story very easy and natural. It felt almost like Sting’s lyrical poetry and music were already the story I was writing, though of course I know it wasn’t. He wrote each song in isolation with no connection between them. It was a real privilege trying to make those connections.

Similar to the other productions I have created, choreography is the third layer to the work. Once I have structure, storytelling, music and lyrics all working well together, then I can move on to create the choreography. I don’t like empty steps, so this process ensures each step and movement that the performer makes has intention and purpose.

As a dance production using songs that already existed, it was so important to me that the story still had the power to resonate. I wanted it to feel sincere and natural without being clunky. Having Lolita on board helped me so much to achieve that.

Videographers – Michael Peers, Jo Cork Sound editor - DJ Walde

Film Editor – Michael Peers

Photography - Johan Persson, Helen Maybanks

Costume Designs - Anna Fleischle©

Video content courtesy of Sadler’s Wells & One Dance UK