Luke Howard’s 2022 ballet Interlinked, choreographed by Juliano Nunes, played to thousands of festivalgoers on the iconic Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury on 30 June, performed by Birmingham Royal Ballet – the only ballet company to appear at the festival this year. Watch an excerpt from Interlinked here.
Australian composer Howard’s score for Interlinked was commissioned for Birmingham Royal Ballet’s triple bill On Your Marks, celebrating the city’s hosting of the Commonwealth games in 2022. The piece for 16 dancers is an exploration of the values of the Commonwealth, taking as its starting point ideas of inspiration, tolerance, and respect, as well as engaging in an exploration and critique of the gender norms of ballet choreography through both movement and designs by Tom Visser. The athletic choreography described how the energy that we exude bounces from one person to the next, in a never-ending circle. Howard’s score was conducted by Paul Murphy.
Interlinked is Howard’s third collaboration with Nunes, who has previously choreographed pieces for the Atlanta Ballet, Philadelphia Ballet (2022’s Alignment), and the Royal Ballet (‘Bear Story II’ from his album Open Heart Story in 2019). In 2023 Interlinked toured to the United States for performances in Orlando and New York City.
The same season Samantha Lynch choreographed his work for Where does the time go? at the Stuttgart Ballet. His music has also been used to accompany works at the Nederlands Dans Theater (Storm, Dead Walk and All Around Us Is Dirt choreographed by Alan Lucien Øyen as part of Tell your mom you love your skin), the Royal New Zealand Ballet (A Different Idea of Love, choreographed by Alison Topp) and the San Francisco Ballet (Dwight Roden’s The Promised Land).