Dystopia to Utopia at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park

17 December 2022

Image by Erin Aniker

In September 2022 East London Dance took an 80 strong cast of community, youth and professional dancers and singers from east London to the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park for a spectacular outdoor performance fusing dance, music, spoken word and film, set against the stunning backdrop of the rising East Bank buildings.

Creatively produced by East London Dance in partnership with UD Music and part of East Bank’s 2022 Creative Programme, Dystopia to Utopia: Reimagining Our Future was a large-scale outdoor performance commissioned and produced by East Bank Partners: University College London, UAL: London College of Fashion, V&A East, BBC Music and Sadler’s Wells East.

As the sunset on Thursday 22 September the East Bank site on the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park came to life with projection and genre-bending performance, inspired by the theme of Dystopia/Utopia set by renowned publication gal-dem. Co-designed by the young people, community cast and creative team, the piece re-imagined our future as we come together as a community following the pandemic.

We followed the dance artists and creative team led by Creative Director, Dannielle ‘Rhimes’ Lecointe, as they took on the performance and created this short behind the scenes film.

Footage by The Duke LDN

Look out in early 2023 when we update this page with footage from the final production.