Ipswich to host world premiere of dance show Femina

Why it matters: Ipswich will host the world premiere of Femina, the latest show from dance company Ekleido, which blends contemporary, club and street dance styles.

The details: Femina is exploring the question of how femininity is perceived, embodied and valued through time, with six dancers performing to an electronic score by Mercury Prize nominee Floating Points, Colombian composer Ela Minus and Warpaint drummer Stella Mozgawa.

The show is Ekleido's first work created for an ensemble of six dancers and runs for approximately one hour. The casts's skills range from house dance, waacking and New Way Vogue to gymnastics and contemporary dance.

What they're saying: Ekleido founders Hannah Ekholm and Faye Stoeser described Femina as "an essay through dance, and laying our findings on the floor".

"We explore these questions by playing with different variables: how movement is perceived through the lens of gender; how costume and props shape ideas of femininity; how different movement qualities are read as masculine, feminine or neutral; and how music influences those perceptions," they said.

They added: "Femina brings together performers with varied relationships to femininity, reflecting on its complexity and challenging the idea that femininity belongs to women alone."

For context: Ekholm and Stoeser have collaborated since 2018 and formed Ekleido in 2023. The name fuses "echo" and "kaleidoscope" with "eido", which in Greek means "to perceive or discover".

Alongside Ekholm and Stoeser, Femina features Rashaan Asare, Rory Clarke, Tia Hockey and Jasper Narvaez.

The bigger picture: Femina has been commissioned and co-produced by The Place and co-commissioned by Gulbenkian and DanceEast, supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England.

After opening in Ipswich, the tour moves on to:

• Gulbenkian, Canterbury – Thursday, 29 and Friday, 30 October at 20:00
• The Place, London – Thursday, 5 to Saturday, 7 November at 19:30

The bottom line: Ipswich hosts the world premiere of Femina, a new show that uses club, street and contemporary dance to ask what femininity means – and who it belongs to.

Femina is at DanceEast on Friday, 9 October 2026 at 19:30. Book tickets at danceeast.co.uk.

Don't forget: If you enjoy our content, please add Ipswich.co.uk as a "preferred source" on Google so you can easily find more of the content you value.

This article cost us ~£14 to produce

It's free for you to read thanks to the generous support of our partners. Please support us by supporting them.