Sir Matthew Bourne announces a brand new production of The Red Shoes, coming to Birmingham in 2017

Based on the beloved fairy tale and Academy Award-winning movie, Sir Matthew Bourne brings his brand new magical adaptation of The Red Shoes to our stage next year.

A beloved fairy-tale and Academy Award-winning movie, The Red Shoes has seduced audiences and inspired generations of dancers with its tale of obsession, possession and one girl’s dream to be the greatest dancer in the world. Victoria Page lives to dance but her ambitions become a battleground between the two men who inspire her passion.

Creating the coveted role of Victoria Page will be the Australian dancer and New Adventures Principal, Ashley Shaw. Ashley is currently wowing audiences around the UK and received rave reviews for her performance as Aurora in Matthew Bourne’s “Sleeping Beauty” when it was on our stage earlier this year. Ashley has been dancing with New Adventures since 2009 performing many of the Company’s leading female roles including “Nutcracker!”, ‘Lana’ in “The Car Man”, ‘Kim’ in “Edward Scissorhands” and the title role in “Cinderella”. This will be her first created role in a new production.

Matthew Bourne said “It has been a long held ambition of mine to bring “The Red Shoes” to the stage as a dance/drama. It is set in the theatrical world of a touring dance company. It is actually about dance and dancers, a world that we all understand so well. However, the film’s genius is to make that theatrical world at times surreal, larger than life and highly cinematic. My challenge will be to capture some of that surreal, sensuous quality within the more natural theatre setting.

“It has also long been an ambition of mine to bring the incomparable music of Bernard Herrmann to the stage. It has been fascinating to discover how much of this music lends itself to story-telling through dance and this production will, I believe, be the first full length ballet to celebrate his unique music.”

The Red Shoes is set to a new score arranged by New Adventures Associate Artist, Terry Davies using the mesmerizing music of golden-age Hollywood composer, Bernard Herrmann (most famous for his collaborations with Alfred Hitchcock, Orson Welles and Martin Scorsese), whose work ranges from the witty and playfully robust to the achingly romantic and bittersweet.

Matthew Bourne’s The Red Shoes will be on our stage from 7 – 11 Feb 2017. Tickets go on sale to Birmingham Hippodrome Friends at 10am on 15 April, with general sale opening at 10am on 19 April.