Eliot Smith Dance announces the creation and tour of its festive dance production for families

The award-winning North East dance company, Eliot Smith Dance (ESD) presents "The Three Jolly Ghosts of Christmas" – Eliot Smith's magical retelling of a classic festive tale, brought to life with dramatic choreography and festive storytelling, set to a new instrumental piece of music by Adam Johnson with atmospheric costumes.

This stunning contemporary dance production to enthral and entertain families and children aged 7+ is based on the iconic Christmas story A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens and is a festive reminder of kindness, friendship and helping others.

Performed by four astonishing dancers with humour and playful mix of dance styles, the dance will open with Scrooge being forever miserable and grumpy. But when the jolly ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Yet To Come take him on a magical-dancing adventure, the ghosts open his heart, which ultimately brings about his change of character before it’s too late.

Eliot Smith, creative director says, “Throughout the past three years, ESD has been actively engaging with children in the Newcastle upon Tyne area via our environmental workshops which led ESD winning the "Highly Commended Creative Health Award" at the recent Chris Drinkwater Creative Health in Primary Schools Award 2023, hosted by NHS Child Health and Wellbeing Network North East and North Cumbria. This winter and in a new venture for ESD, our dancers and creative team are rehearsing my first-ever dance production for children and their families to experience in their local libraires and one museum across the North East. Creativity is children's unique response to all that they see, hear, feel and experience. This inclusive dance production promises to offer that to the children attending.

The performances are Pay What You Decide, which means you don’t have to pay until after you have seen the performance.

Pay What You Decide not only allows you to pay what you can afford, rather than a fixed ticket price, but also removes the financial risk of buying a ticket for a performance in advance without knowing whether you are going to enjoy it or not. This method also supports families with the current cost of living.

Following every performance, children (with their parents / guardians) will also have the opportunity to take part in an inclusive dance workshop to meet the cast and learn dance routines from the production.

The performances will take place throughout December at: Wooler, Berwick upon Tweed, Morpeth, Widdrington, Haltwhistle, Hexham, Newcastle, Darlington and Barnard Castle. There will also be an online performance on Christmas Day.

ESD acknowledges the support from public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England.

For more information and to reserve tickets, visit www.eliotsmithdance.com/events