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In 2018, Sadler’s Wells commissioned three works to celebrate 20 years in their current theatre: two were well received but one left 

the audience stunned. This work, Botis Seva’s BLKDOG, went on to win the 2019 Olivier Award for Best New Dance Production. Alongside Alesandra Seutin and Julie Cunningham, Botis presented BLKDOG, inspired by Sally Brampton’s Shoot The Damn Dog, a work that delves into the notions of inner city coping mechanisms. Vital and gripping, BLKDOG is Botis Seva’s haunting commentary on surviving adulthood as a childlike artist. A genre-defying blend of hip hop dance and free form antics, BLKDOG explores the inner battlefield of an ageing artist trying to retain his youth. With music from long standing collaborator Torben Lars Sylvest, design by Ryan Dawson Laight, lighting by Tom Visser and performed by Botis’ powerhouse company Far From The Norm, BLKDOG searches for coping mechanisms in the ultimate hunt for acceptance. In April 2019, BLKDOG took home Best New Dance Production at the Olivier Awards; a monumental win for Hip Hop dance, the UK’s wider dance industry and beyond. Botis was among the ten winners of the inaugural 2021 Chanel Next Prize.South London-born, Seva is one of those rare artists - Basquiat springs to mind - whose innate and largely unmentored talent emerged from experience and was nurtured on the street. Initially influenced by hip-hop theatre, and galvanised by dance as a personal means of responding to systemic racism and social deprivation, he has over fifteen years evolved and honed a dance vocabulary all his own. The company he founded at 19, Far From The Norm is thrilling critics and audiences with its genre-defying physical poetry, steeped in black pop culture. In their padded hoodies the BLKDOG troupe look like a feral street gang, and on one level the piece is about urban black youth and their ways of coping with hopelessness and fear. But impossible as it may seem, this is an exhilarating work about despair: they appear to be literally pressured from above as they jerk and pulse, largely on their haunches, with release coming in flashes of violent activity, co-ordinated with splitsecond precision as if by electric current.  

“Steeped in Hip Hop, Seva savoured bold, hunkered-down unison motion, where his dancers put across with electric timing” — The Times 

“Seva’s dance language has its roots in hip-hop, but flowers inunexpected ways” — Financial Times

“Seva’s onto something remarkable” — The Stage 

“fierce, pounding, unisex movement derived from hip-hop modes” — The Sunday Times 

“A new dance language was being forged in front of my eyes […] It’s easy to see why BLKDOG won an Olivier on its London debut, and after seeing this deeply compelling, powerful work”  — Dance Australia 

“Always earth-bound, they look like a feral street gang, egged on by Torben Lars Sylvest’s pounding score – so intense that as an audience you feel its vibrations in your own body.”  — Culture Whisper 

“Influenced by hip-hop, they jerk and pulse their way around the stage, with timing that is robotically and breathtakingly precise […] dance does not get more exciting than this.” — The Reviews Hub 

“Is this a detention centre or the mind’s interior?” — British Theatre Guide 

“Seva is a choreographer on the cusp of a new direction in the shifting sands of British contemporary dance and one likely to have a big following in its future.” — Bachtrack

“BLKDOG by Botis Seva rattles his mind and swoons the audience in a tenebrous exploration of his psyche.” — Strand Magazine 

“Seva has invented a haunting, powerful reflection on depressioninspired by Sally Brampton’s Shoot The Damn Dog.” — Writing About Dance 

“Visceral, breathtakingly moving and movingly impressive, ‘BLKDOG’ushers in a whole new necessary genre and era of dance.” — Lucy Writers Platform 

“The choreographic style of Botis Seva is absolutely thrilling, displaying brilliant hip-hop moves executed by masterful dancers who serve the subject at hand perfectly through their bodies’ display of annihilating freezes and high tensions” — Strand magazine  

 

Born in South London and raised in East London, Botis Seva was introduced to dance at secondary school aged 15, through Hip Hop dance theatre experimentalist Tony Adigun (Avant Garde Dance). Botis went on to dance for Avant Garde Dance in his earlier performances career, performing as part of The Bunker Thing, Montiverde Ballets and Attack of the Bandstand. After dropping out of Dagenham College after his first year, Botis established Far From The Norm in 2009, with an interest in experimenting with hip hop whilst challenging conventions within dance theatre. Far From The Norm’s work portfolio crosses theatre performances, outdoor spectacles and immersive experiences that are renowned for challenging yet inspiring their audiences. They have presented work at Austria’s Hip Hop Goes Theatre, Breakin’ Convention’s international tours in Toronto, Luxembourg and London and at San Francisco’s International Hip Hop Dance Festival. In 2015, Botis was awarded the Bonnie Bird Choreography Fund and with two sold out nights for his Sadler’s Wells curated Wild Card evening in the Lilian Baylis entitled InNoForm, his career was catapulted forward. Botis was then awarded 1st place at the Copenhagen International Choreography Competition and Choreography 30 in Hannover with his short musical masterpiece 60 Sec. Football hooligan theatrical short H.O.H was developed through Breakin Convention’s Open Art Surgery and later that year was commissioned by GDIF, Norfolk & Norwich Festival and Without Walls to be presented through the Without Walls outdoor touring programme. To finish 2016, Botis was commissioned by Greenwich Dance and Trinity Laban through the Compass Commission and it was here that his musical relationship with long standing collaborator Torben Lars Sylvest started to flourish.Botis’ first commission as a guest choreographer came in 2017, when Fleur Darkin then Artistic Director of Scottish Dance Theatre approached Botis to make TuTuMucky, assisted by Torben and rehearsal director Victoria Shulungu (Far From The Norm). He also created his second touring outdoor work Da Native exploring cultural nomads, commissioned by Latitude Festival, GDIF, Lyric Hammersmith and Watford Palace Theatre. It was in 2017, that Botis was an Aerowaves17 artist, taking his short work REK to Urban Moves at Dansenhus, Oslo and Aerowaves, Spring Forward in Denmark. With exposure to the international scene, Botis began a relationship with Crying Out Loud, contemporary circus company based in London. It was at the end of 2017, that Botis created GEN 20:20 with Far Form The Norm and 4 Korean dancers which premiered at SiDance International Festival (funded through an initiative between Arts Council England, Arts Council Korea and Producer Group Dot).In 2018, Botis began working on BLKDOG as part of the Sadler’s Wells 20th anniversary commission Reckonings, an evening of work from Botis Seva, Julie Cunningham and Alesandra Seutin. That same year, he wasinvited to choreograph for Studio Wayne McGregor and Robin Friend’s Performance Live work ‘Winged Bull in the Elephant Case’ which premiered on BBC2 and collaborate on ‘REACH’ with upcoming film director Billy Boyd Cape as part of Channel 4 Random Acts. BLKDOG premiered at Sadler’s Wells in Autumn 2019 to an overwhelming response from audiences, artists and critics. Botis was awarded an Olivier for Best New Dance Production for BLKDOG in April 2019. 2019 sees Botis guest artistic director of the National Youth Dance Company and MADHEAD tours nationally through out Spring-Summer 2019. He is also one of the guest choreographers for NSCD’s Verve and will create a short work for their 2020 tour later this year. In 2021 he was among the 10 artists who received the inaugural Chanel Next Prize. 

 

Artistic Director/Choreographer Botis Seva

Performers Far From the Norm

Music Composition Torben Lars Sylvest

Costume Design Ryan Dawson -Laight

Original Lighting Design Tom Visser

Producer Lee Griffiths

Production Manager Andy Downie

Co-production Norrlandsoperan, Sadler's Wells

Co-organizer Shanghai Orient Culture Business Co.,Ltd, Shanghai International Dance Center Theater