Image: Far From Home by Alleyne Dance. Photograph by Camilla Greenwell

Championing tolerance and integration, London-based identical twin sisters Kristina and Sadé Alleyne, founders of Alleyne Dance, are set to present Far From Home, a new touring production premiering at The Place, London this November. Looking at humanity via stories of migration and the consequences that the search for “a better life” has for those forced to seek it, this multicultural production features dancers from Argentina, France, Greece and Italy. Here, the sisters talk about motherhood, the choreographic journey and the value of local communities in theatre.

RR: Tell us a bit more about the subject matter of Far From Home and Close to Home.

Kristina Alleyne: Far from Home was built on the journey of leaving home in search of somewhere better to belong. It’s about the people that you leave, the families that you leave, the environments that you leave, and then where do you arrive? The people that you meet along the way. The people that you miss, and who fills that void.

Close to Home is about the arrival, about the community in which you land. How does it affect the community and how does it affect you. For example: what does the food taste like? What is the music like? What about the people - do they have a different language? Do they have a similar language? What is specific about that community in particular?

Sadé Alleyne: The more we’re diving into Far From Home and Close to Home the more I realise we’re all so different. Everyone has their personal stories and yet we’re all exactly the same which is something that unites us and I think that’s gorgeous. We’re all on exactly the same page but in different books. 

It’s helped me to start to understand people’s stories and witness people’s journeys and how close that hits home for us: certain words for me hit differently to how they do with other people, and what is beautiful about this topic is that we get to talk about it, and we get to feel each other. Not that we always know each other but we have that understanding.

What has been the choreographic journey behind the two productions? How have the new company members inspired the work? 

Sadé: Our style is expression, so we encourage ourselves and the people we’re working with to use their experiences physically (as in dance experience) but also culturally - incorporating life stories into the dance. We don’t separate styles and ideas, in fact we are always just moving through expression, moving through exploration, and that’s a whole body thing. So with these beautiful dancers it’s really shifting the work because we are working with different bodies and different cultures from around the world. We all speak different languages in the studio and yet we are united because of our joy of dancing.

Kristina: What’s special about these dancers that we’re working with is that they all have their native dance, in a way, but we would say it’s not native in a sense of their culture or the country where they are from, but rather what their parents, their family, their friends and their community taught them. It was very interesting how some styles connected because sometimes the communities we grew up in were quite similar in what they were interested in, but others were very different.

We are working with dancers that are coming from Hip-hop, breakdancing, traditional Greek movement, dancing to the death kind of movement, West African, ritual, Kathak, Caribbean – it’s all in the weird world which, I wouldn’t say is traditional but you’re set is coming from your heritage, your community and your family. 

RR: What has it been like working together on this production since Kristina has given birth to her first child, Nyjah?

Sadé: It’s challenging, but in a beautiful way. I think that just by having this new life in the studio and experiencing my sister shifting to motherhood has really brought grounding into the studio. Also that break for humanity so we don’t get too lost in the journey of the work and the artistry. What we’re trying to do is make this piece humane and relevant because it is people’s stories. It will always be relevant because it is people’s stories. So to experience having a new life in the studio really just brings us all together. 

As a sister it has been really challenging because I realised how strong we are as a unit but also I am acknowledging more of my strengths and more of how strong we are as a team. 

Kristina: For me it’s been challenging in a sense that my body has had to change. I’ve been through all the developments of pregnancy and the post in this process in the sense that I got pregnant during the R&D, and then through the rehearsals I was heavily pregnant, I was dancing in rehearsals until the day that my water broke and then returned to rehearsals with my baby. What is beautiful is that the group get to witness this child grow in rehearsals, and like Sadé said it brings the humanity and the idea of family into the space. It really touches me when I’m reading and hearing and meeting families that have had such a journey to get to this ‘better place’, where yes, they are in the UK but they’re still struggling, they’re still trying to survive because of money or the system. It just really hit me and I feel so privileged to be in this situation with Nyjah in a place that I can call home and feel safe

Image: Far From Home by Alleyne Dance. Photograph by Camilla Greenwell.

RR: Tell us more about why you decided to work with the community in this piece? 

Kristina: We really wanted to work with the community with these productions because we love participation! We love to share. We wanted to combine our performance and our participation work together to create memories and to share the space. 

For this work in particular, because we are talking about people, different types of people and people with different experiences, we felt that it was very important that on stage we showed the variety of people. That’s why me and Sadé weren’t enough, we had to get dancers and that’s also not enough, we had to work with the local community so that we can create a bit more depth in the work. 

Sadé: For us it’s definitely about visibility and just to see someone that you recognize on stage, whatever that might be, is inspiring. You feel like they’re sharing a part of your story. That’s one of the main reasons we got into dance was to see someone on stage that represented some part of who we are and just to have this piece so that people might see themselves on stage is beautiful. I think that by having the community cast, it just feels like more of a conversation and we want people to enjoy this extra highlight and the cherry on top of how you can fly on stage. 

Kristina: How it works is that every city, town and country that we travel to, the local community will be on stage. Meaning that the movement, the language and the presence will change each time because it will belong to the community in which we perform. 

RR: What does it mean to you having the world premiere in your home city of London? 

Kristina: Sadé and I were born in London, the heart of London. Our family were born in Barbados, but we feel like Londoners, even though when we go back to Barbados we try to make it feel like home. We connect to the food, the people, the music and the culture but I still feel like an outsider, whereas I feel like London is my home. Because I feel like it’s so multicultural. There’s so many people welcome in this city; it’s beautiful. To premiere in London is so special because it’s full of different ethnicities, cultures and stories. We’re very excited! 

Sadé: Our family and friends are here as well, and our community like people we’ve met along our years, not just from teaching but also through our life patterns, they are here. To have a supportive audience that is sharing our experience on stage is just a gift, so we’re really excited for it. 

Far from Home will be performed at The Place, 4-5 November, 7.30pm. To find out more and to book tickets, please head here. More information about Alleyne Dance is available on their website.