Bowie Dance Show Sets 2028 Sadler's Wells Premiere — SkimNews
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- "Subject to Change: A Dance for David Bowie" will world-premiere in Luxembourg, then stage at Sadler's Wells London in autumn 2028, with a Tokyo engagement at Bunkamura scheduled for 2029.
- Choreographer Marcos Morau is drawing on Bowie's "artistic reincarnation" via personas including Aladdin Sane, the Thin White Duke, Halloween Jack, and Ziggy Stardust; he says Bowie's gift was turning change into a way of remaining himself.
- Bowie songs will be reworked with choral traditions from around the world and performed with the voice of Spanish singer Maria Arnal, deliberately moving "beyond" a nostalgic tribute, per Morau.
- The production team reunites Morau's regular collaborators: set designer Max Glaenzel (reprising his chandelier/lamppost work), costume designer Silvia Delagneau, and musical directors Alex Röser Vatiché and Ben Meerwein, co-produced by Sadler's Wells, Bunkamura and Morau's company La Veronal.
- Bowie's dance lineage included training with mime Lindsay Kemp, who directed him in 1967's "Pierrot in Turquoise," plus later collaborations with choreographers Édouard Lock and Annie-B Parson — a thread Morau's show explicitly extends.
- The promotional image features Kansai Yamamoto's black vinyl "Tokyo Pop" jumpsuit, the costume Yamamoto designed for Bowie's 1973 Ziggy Stardust-era performances; the V&A's Bowie archive, including Yamamoto's Ziggy pieces, begins touring next month.
Why it matters: The show slots into a booming cycle of orchestral-choral rock reworkings for dance (Black Sabbath: The Ballet, The Who's Quadrophenia) that pull new audiences to legacy catalogues. The 2029 Tokyo leg, co-produced with Bunkamura and visually anchored by Yamamoto's Tokyo Pop jumpsuit, leans directly into Bowie's well-documented Japanese fanbase, while Morau's refusal of a straightforward tribute reframes the show as a commission rather than a memorial.
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