Welcome to RISE 2025.
This year, Dance North’s annual festival of contemporary dance and performance brings to Findhorn another unique programme which celebrates the connections between us.
For RISE 2025 we have brought together an extraordinary line up of international artists and performers to explore how we live, dream and move in extraordinary times.
Storytelling is at the heart of this year’s festival, inviting us to share in the personal experiences and journeys of our programmed artists through performance, participation and conversation.
With live dance performances, workshops, artist talks and an immersive installation, it’s a programme tailor-made to challenge, provoke and inspire.
This year we’re offering a three day full Festival pass for £85. Your full pass gives you access to most shows and parties, with a couple of exceptions, clearly marked.
Tickets for individual performances will be released very soon. Individual performances will cost £15 and tickets to workshops £10-12.
Be still, sit back and listen; celebrate, debate and relate; dance and feel alive at RISE 2025.
Karl Jay-Lewin, Festival Director
Click on the image above to view and download the full RISE 2025 programme.
Performances: Full Festival Pass £85 (£60 for Regional Artist Network members)
Individual Performances: £15
Workshops: £10-12
Advance booking is essential.
WATCH: RISE 2025 – Dance North Conversations…RISE 2025
Sit up and listen to our RISE artists in conversation with Māori contemporary dance artist and cultural advocate, Paige Shand Haami, recorded live for our new podcast, Dance North Conversations…
DO: RISE 2025 – RADIOMATON
A total sensory and immersive experience, RADIOMATON questions the construction of truth, media contamination, fake news and the role of the body in the perception of information.
WATCH: RISE 2025 – The Perfect Number by Richard Layzell
The Perfect Number by Richard Layzell. In live performance and on film, at the same time, we explore dreams, other living beings, brutality and survival, trees fighting back, how to pose, wearing the wrong clothes, undisciplined golfers, the Centre of the World and finding the Perfect Number.
DO: RISE 2025 – Regional Artist Network Event with guest artist Rakesh Sukesh
Join Dance North’s Regional Artist Network for our biannual gathering, supporting freelance dance artists across the north of Scotland, Highlands, and Islands. In a field often marked by isolation, we cherish the chance to come together and recharge.
DO: RISE 2025 – RISE Festival Party with DJ Deborah Lewin
Join us to celebrate RISE 2025 at our Friday night party at the Phoenix Café complete with live DJ set from Deborah Lewin. The Phoenix Café will be open late, the drinks will be flowing and the moves will be unparalleled.
DO: RISE 2025 – Acro-balance family workshop with Ashtar Muallem
A fun and interactive acro-oga workshop designed for one adult and one child (ages 3-10), combining circus games and pair yoga techniques.
DO: RISE 2025 – Dance Jam led by Seke Chimutengwende
Join Seke Chimutengwende in this unique dance jam in exploring the space at Universal Hall with freedom, play, presence and awareness.
DO: RISE 2025 – Picnic lunch with DJ Bration
Our family-friendly picnic party returns to the Dancing Green, with a socially conscious and spiritually uplifting roots reggae setlist from DJ Bration.
WATCH: RISE 2025 – Long Solo 4 – Seke Chimutengwende
Seke Chimutengwende embarks on a one hour performance without a plan. As he faces the empty space, alone, he draws on memory, sensation and imagination to conjure worlds out of nothing. A fusion of dance, poetry, stand-up, storytelling, philosophy and politics: a riotous exploration of the present moment.
WATCH: RISE 2025 – And – Charlotte Mclean
A dance poem about wonder, worries and being alive. A homage to the mothers and grandmothers who have danced before us and the children we are yet to meet, And invites us to consider our view of the world, to relate, debate and dance.
WATCH: RISE 2025 – because i love the diversity – Rakesh Sukesh
In because i love the diversity (this micro-attitude, we all have it), Rakesh tells the story of his own journey through the powerful semi-improvisational, trance-like movement technique that makes him such an in-demand teacher across the world.
WATCH: RISE 2025 – Cosmos – Ashtar Muallem et Clément Dazin – La Main de l’Homme
A Palestinian born in Jerusalem, Ashtar Muallem tells her story, her relationship to her country, to her body and spirituality in this funny and moving show.