On 18 November BalletBoyz premiere Six Lethargies, a dance work to music by Keaton Henson choreographed by Iván Pérez and Seirian Griffiths, at Sadler’s Wells. The 70-minute work, presented without a break, is scored for 37 strings and performed with live orchestra. Details of the performances here.
The ballet is an exploration of how trauma, memory, anxiety, and empathy live together in the body and the mind and chronicles a journey through six distinctive emotional landscapes. “If I write how it feels to me”, Henson asks, “will you feel it too?” The 2018 work premiered with Britten Sinfonia at the Barbican, accompanied by an multi-sensory installation element, wherein a portion of the audience will be monitored, with their anxiety levels controlling the lighting of the show in real time.
Six Lethargies continues Henson’s relationship with the company. In 2026 the celebrated Duet from Us, choreographed by Christopher Wheeldon, appeared as part of a ‘Still Pointless’, a 30-date UK tour celebrating 25 years of the all-male company. The tour begins with five performances at Sadler’s Wells (12-16 May) before further dates across England. It originally formed part of the double-bill Them/Us and features an intense, brooding score by Henson, rich with strings. Interviewed in the the Times in April 2025, Wheeldon said of the piece
Us is an exploration, without being overt, of various connections between men. In some cases, [these are] romantic connections, in others brotherly connections, in others connections that can come from a more macho antagonistic culture, men trying to alpha each other.
Henson’s ballet roots are firmly established – his mother was a principal ballerina in The Royal Ballet – and he has worked with several acclaimed choreographer. His collaboration with BalletBoyz goes back to the score for Young Men, which also featured in the 'Still Pointless' programme. A feature-length dance film, which went on to win the 2017 Rose d’Or and Golden Prague awards -watch Henson discuss the score here. Shot on location in France, the film stars the BalletBoyz dancers as soldiers experiencing the brutality of the First World War in a captivating hybrid of drama and dance, combined with Keaton’s strikingly haunting music and the eloquent choreography of Iván Pérez.