Turn 2026
Programme Notes
→ artists · programme · entry · access · about · credits Updated 19 March 2026 20:45
Presented by Word of Warning + Contact
Turn 2026 is a night of new dance at Contact featuring nine short works in three spaces on Friday 20 March — look at our artists’ images. Our thirteenth annual platform for North West dancers and dance-makers starts at 7pm in space 1…
Blood Bones Jones · Tessera
Tessera — noun. A small block of stone, tile, glass, or other material used in the construction of a mosaic.
Content Warning: please click here.
Performers: Abbie Fearns, Alexander Oswald (saxophonist), Joshua Owen, Lydia Horne, Tom Oakley, Tzu-Hsien Wang
Additional music made by Ethan Corrigan.
Faye Jones is a dance artist, choreographer, and filmmaker based in the North West. Growing up in the Manchester dance scene, The Lowry CAT scheme exposed her to multiple styles of contemporary dance and gave space for her creative practice. Whilst studying her foundation degree at Northern School of Contemporary Dance she developed a love for combining film with dance. After this year she joined London Contemporary Dance School, working with choreographers including James Cousins and Holly Blakey. Faye later returned to the North West to join Emergence at the University of Salford, where she worked with Joss Arnott, Lisa Marie Robinson, Sofia Nappi, and SAY (Sarah Golding & Yukiko Masui). She is interested in pushing the boundaries between live performance and cinema through the genres of horror and science fiction, using a wide range of dance styles to create creatures and beings not of this world.
Insta @blood.bones.jones @faye.joness @abbie_fearns @alexander.ozza @__joshua_owen__ @lydiahornecreative @tomm.oakley @_____________.z.x @ethan_a_corrigan
Joseph Lau & friends · Vessels in Motion
A new movement and dance work in development exploring stillness, quiet, trance, and meditation across the dynamic, vibrational, and frequency range of the body.
With Joanne Perrie and Rander Martins de Melo.
Joseph is a North West dance artist creating collaborative performance work with fellow movers and musicians. His practice explores movement, rhythm, and collective physical presence.
Insta @jau.artist @joannepirrie @rander_tucum_capoeira
Emmy Jax & Sophia Egan · In Harmony
Dancers explore mental health, identity, and the catharsis of movement through African traditional and contemporary rhythms as well as hip hop fusion.
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Emmy & Sophia are Manchester-based dance artists collaborating on contemporary performance work. Their practice explores connection, musicality and shared physical expression.
Insta @emmyjakx @sophs_lifeventures
Joseph Adamson · bare nerve (work-in-progress)
we all have one body, one conscience; let it speak its truth.
sensations share one body, pulling in opposite directions.
the mind races, the body lingers, both refusing silence, until exhaustion strikes.
the body learns its truth to stay, to feel, to accept as part of becoming whole.
Content Warning: please click here.
Choreography, Text, Performer: Joseph Adamson
Dramaturg & Mentors: Isobelle Webb & Sophie Owen
Joseph (he/him) is a queer-identifying, early-career dance artist and choreographer from Cheshire. He recently graduated from Northern School of Contemporary Dance and has worked with Phoenix Dance Theatre, Jasmin Vardimon Company, Jamaal Burkmar, and FLOCK. His artistic direction is grounded in multidisciplinary inquiry, fusing disciplines to cultivate embodied exploration. This process functions as a meditative experience for himself that softens the sense of time and heightens awareness of sensation and internal rhythms.
Insta @josephthomasadamson
printerror · Tied
Consumed by the ties and bounds of something we want to let go.
printerror is a Northern-based dance/performance company specialising in combining styles including popping, hip hop, and contemporary. Co-founded by Lia Garner and Fleur Hetherington, it aims to create unique movement languages and engaging work.
Insta @printerror.co @fleurr_louise @lia_garner
Sap Dance · Twenty-first Century Love
An intergenerational duet that explores the compulsions and complexities of love and intimacy in contemporary times. A man and a much younger woman negotiate their relationship. Refusing to specify if this relationship is between two lovers, a young woman and her father, or two friends, the duet invites the audience to question their own assumptions about the dynamics of different types of love and to follow changes in who is and isn’t in control.
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Co-choreographed and performed by Orla Collier & Nigel Stewart.
Commissioned by Ludus Dance as part of Looking Back, Moving Forward at the Dukes Theatre, Lancaster, on 17 October 2025.
Nigel is a freelance dance artist and Emeritus Senior Lecturer at Lancaster University. He has choreographed and performed in the UK, the US, and continental Europe since 1982.
Orla is a freelance dance artist, physical theatre practitioner, and life model. Having trained at Rambert and Northern School of Contemporary Dance where she performed with Verve, she has created solo work and collaborated on a wide range of site-specific and interdisciplinary projects for UK companies.
Sap Dance have produced short theatre pieces and full-length site-specific rural performance works since 2005. They last performed at Turn in 2016.
Insta @orla.collier
Alice Robinson Moves · Elements
Violin loop pedal meets expressive dance improviser.
Alice is an experienced movement specialist and clown with an MA in Movement Studies from CSSD. Her work focuses on enlivening a playful body in performance and in teaching. Alongside performing, teaching, and movement direction she runs Mothers Who Make for the many mothers of Manchester at HOME, where they explore and express their art forms alongside caring roles.
Claire Northey is a violinist and composer who has worked on theatre projects in Manchester and Bristol over the past decade. Recent work includes Motherkind in partnership with Mothers Who Make. She creates live soundtracks using violin and loop pedal, layering atmospheric strings and beats with an exploratory use of the instrument’s body.
Insta @alicerobinsonmoves @clairenorthey
Hui-Hsin Lu · Black & White
A dance work inspired by Taoist ritual culture and the figures of the Black and White Impermanence. Through a duet built on gestures and physical dialogue, the piece explores the shifting relationship between two bodies. Echoing ritual movements, the choreography reflects themes of yin and yang, tension and harmony, and the balance between opposing forces.
Dancers: Brian Yam, JP Hon
Composer: Balfours (Juncheng Su)
Costume Designer: Hanxin Zhang
Hui-Hsin Lu (she/her) is a Taiwan-born choreographer and physical theatre artist based in the UK. Her work spans immersive dance, physical theatre, film, and cross-disciplinary arts — exploring tensions between society, emotion, and the environment through embodied narratives. Her creations include The Lab (Silver Medal, Singapore International Choreography Competition 2022); Rush! (guest choreographer, University of Northern Ohio, 2024); Sanctum of Shadows (Edinburgh Fringe 2025); Me, Myself and I (Company Chameleon UPLIFT 2025); Follow Me!! (Resolution 2026).
Insta @luhuihsinn @brianyam_ag @jp.hon @balfourssound @hanxinart
Clara Selberg · Embodied
This work asks what remains when language falls away and invites you to witness how movement can reveal something beyond words. Through improvisation, breath, and shared movement, the dancers explore how bodily knowledge supports non-verbal communication of emotions, kinaesthetic empathy, and the body as a vessel for emotional sensations.
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Dancers: Bee Minett, Chloe Smith, Ozzy Berzin-Cohen, Sasha Gunning
Clara is a Swedish choreographer, dancer, and performer. Clara’s choreographic practice is rooted in a curiosity about what makes us human, unfolding through somatic improvisation and embodied choreographic research. Some of her most recent performance experiences include the exhibition performance Balkan Epic Erotic, directed by Marina Abramović, and pieces by SAY, Sofia Nappi, and Joss Arnott.
Insta @claraselberg_ @bee_minett @clo.smith.dance15 @ozzyb.c @sashagunning_dance
Image: Clara Selberg, due to appear in Turn 2026 at Contact (credit: Wiswould Wise Productions)
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