45 films to be screened over a weekend in June along with two VR experiences
Awards on the Saturday night celebrate best films across six categories
Sadler’s Wells today reveals the lineup for the first edition of its brand-new dance film festival Dance Digital,which takes place in the Lilian Baylis Studio from Friday 5–Sunday 7 June 2026.
The weekend celebrates the best of dance in digital formats through feature length releases, a curated selection of dance on screen short films, and documentaries. Following an open call, 415 films were submitted for inclusion from 55 different countries from Senegal to Syria, Peru to Indonesia. An awards ceremony on the Saturday night will celebrate the best films across six categories. Mentoring and networking events across the Festival will connect dance artists, filmmakers and experts across the sector to help develop their respective practices.
Five feature films explore the transformative power of dance, through stories of discovery, resilience, and euphoria. Rojo Clavel (Red Carnation) from Spain tells the story of virtuosic dancer Manuel Liñan as he chooses a life of Flamenco over bullfighting; Drenched (Australia) by Douglas Reddan and Caetyln Watson from follows ten characters’ psychedelic journey at a house party; Réka Szabó’s award-winning The Euphoria of Being (Hungary) explores life after Auschwitz; four elite female breakdancers battle each other over a two-year journey culminating at the Paris Olympics in Breaking (United Kingdom), while Damien Jalet and Erna Omardottir’s DuEls (France/Belgium/Iceland) is staged in the Vigeland Museum in Belgium to an eclectic soundtrack.
Curated programmes of shorts will showcase different themes including monochrome films, films that respond to the theme of ritual and films created by artists and filmmakers under the age of 21.
Two VR installations – Collective Body by Sarah Silverblatt-Buser and Rebecca Evans’ Hinterland – will be presented across the weekend allowing audiences to participate in mixed reality worlds.
The films selected across the festival demonstrate the extraordinary breadth of dance styles with hip hop, contemporary, ballet, flamenco, Bharatanatyam, breaking, voguing and more featured.
Bia Oliveira, Director of Digital Stage and Studio, said:
“Dance has always lived on screen, from film musicals to music videos, and now the endless scroll of social media where a single clip can travel the world in hours. There is something uniquely powerful about the way a camera can inhabit a dancer’s body, getting closer than any audience seat ever could, showing dance in entirely new angles and transforming it in the process. When we opened our call for submissions, we were frankly astonished by the response; the breadth of voices, styles and stories that came to us from across the globe told us everything: this festival is not just timely, it is necessary. We cannot wait to share what we have in store.”
Tickets for Dance Digital are on-sale now.
Full programme below
Friday 5 June 2026
6pm–7.30pm: FEATURE: Rojo Clavel (Spain). Dance Digital kicks off with new feature-length film Rojo Clavel (Red Carnation), directed by Roser Corella. The film follows the story of Manuel Liñan, whose father wanted him to be a bullfighter and who instead became the Olivier Award-nominated Flamenco dancer; one who challenges the boundaries of flamenco, subverting gender roles and merging tradition with the freedom to be oneself.
8pm–9pm
Sadler’s Wells will then reveal the recipients of its annual short film commission programme, which this year take inspiration from Sadler’s Wells public participatory space, The Dance Floor, and are centred around the theme The Floor Is Yours. The three new films will be screened alongside last year’s winning entries, by Emma Farnell-Watson and Kieran Lai (UK), Mythili Prakash (USA) and Folu Odimayo (UK), that reframed classic dance works. The winners of the micro commissions each received £6,000 to produce their films alongside support for Sadler’s Wells inhouse videography team. The opening night concludes with an opportunity to meet peers in the industry through networking drinks.
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VR installations across Saturday 6 and Sunday 7 June 2026
Collective Body (France/USA/Greece) is an interactive, virtual reality experience that invites us to meet ourselves and each other through movement. Created by Sarah Silverblatt-Buser, the installation was selected for the Venice Biennale in 2025. Set in the middle of a New Mexican storm, participants are guided to rediscover their first ways of engaging with the world, symbolising formative life events that culminate in a shared exploration of our embodied selves. The 20-minute installation for six people involves creating an avatar and creating your own dance work with other participants.
Hinterlands (UK) by choreographer Rebecca Evans and Pell Ensemble is a mixed-reality dance work for headsets inspired by microorganisms called extremophiles that live in some of the earth’s most inhospitable environments. Through an invitation to move, three participants at a time will be guided by a dancer to explore our entanglement with the natural and digital world and our possibilities for surviving and evolving.
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Saturday 6 June 2026
12pm–1pm: SHORTS: Land, Light and Lineage. The Circadian Cycle (Australia) depicts a day from dawn until sunset as the stage for body-as-creature. In Motherhood (USA), a mother awakens in her nest, one baby under her wing, the other two searching for food. You Are Also Us (UK) is a powerful exploration of the complex experience of invisibility. Vestiges (Canada) sees the dancers of Ballet BC star in a striking exploration of memory, connection and what remains. Quiet Revolutions (UK) by Matthew Bourne’s New Adventures captures the radical unseen labour of a community dance artist in a cinematic, vérité-style short that celebrates 10 years of the company’s Overture programme.
1.30pm–2.30pm: Dance Digital presents three short documentaries. Dance to the End (Australia) celebrates the truly creative spirit of Eileen Kramer, who was making art until her death at the age of 110, and her legacy. In Grappling Grace (UK), a jazz-dancing Iranian-British wrestler opens a healing dojo armed with a belief that wrestling might just save the world. AFROBUCK (Nigeria) is the story of how a dance style was invented and introduced to the dance community in Africa and is now practised all around the world.
3pm–4pm: SHORTS: Bold By Design is a series of six short films with bold singular concepts at their hearts. Carmen (Spain) follows young street superstar of flamenco Carmen Aviles through the backstreets of Seville into a housing project. In KIELO (Finland), a girl finds it hard to sit still in class, so takes a break venturing into the corridors of her imagination. A daughter watches her father lose his grip on life in Metamorphosis (UK) as his body twists, fractures and crumbles with each movement tracing the erosion of strength, purpose and identity. The repetitive rhythm of everyday life is disrupted with a new energy in Until it Ran Into Me (India) which creates a meditation on breaking patterns and the process of transformation. The Joy and Sorrow of Time (Denmark) is a delicate dance of possibilities which explores the fragility of the future. An Elevator (Brazil) features a woman stuck in a malfunctioning lift, to overcome her own boredom she begins dancing with her reflection. The films will be followed by a Q&A with the artists.
4.30pm–6pm: FEATURE: The Euphoria of Being (Hungary) is the multi-award-winning film by Réka Szabó.Éva Fahidi was 20 years old when she returned all alone home to Hungary from Auschwitz Birkenau. Now, aged 90, Éva is asked to participate in a dance-theatre performance about her life.
6.30pm–7.30pm: SHORTS: The Wild and the Sacred: Four short films are linked by the theme of ritual. SOMA (UK) is a contemporary myth on the genesis of the human body using movement and dance as its primary medium for storytelling. In a world where identity is distorted by the gaze of others, a surreal tribe explores who we become when we’re watched, in Interruption (UK) A religious rite of passage is transformed into a danced liturgy where presence and tenderness drive each movement in Effetá (Spain), which means open yourself. IN VIADI (Switzerland) is an intimate yet profound act of reconnection, a visceral journey that invites the audience not just to watch, but to pause, listen and feel.
7.45pm–8.45pm: FEATURE: Drenched (Australia) is an experimental film by Douglas Reddan and Caetyln Watson that follows ten characters at a house party, a shared psychedelic journey which fractures reality. Fast-paced and spiritually charged, Drenched moves between the physical and subconscious, delivering a bold, immersive exploration of energy, emotion and transformation.
9pm: Awards ceremony: The Saturday night concludes with an awards ceremony, which will celebrate the best films across categories including Best Documentary, Best Cinematography, Best Social First Film, Best Choreography and Best Dance on Screen Film.
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Sunday 7 June 2026
12pm-6pm
Throughout the day on Sunday, audiences will be able to book one-to-one 15-minute sessions with industry experts, from academics to filmmakers. Booking for these slots will open in May
12pm: FEATURE – Breaking (UK). The announcement that breakdancing was going to the Olympics caused a catastrophic rift in the UK scene. Breaking follows four elite female breakdancers as they battle each other and their beasts in a two-year journey culminating on the biggest stage of all, at the Paris Olympics in 2024.
2pm–3pm: SHORTS: by Young People. Nine short films curated by Sadler’s Wells Learning and Engagement department will showcase the best films being created by young people aged 21 years and under. Two riders wind through country lanes in a balletic bicycle duet Return (Belgium). ECHO:SUBCONSCIOUS (Mexico) explores how our subconscious reflects our experiences and accompanies us daily. Two souls struggle to make something whole, yet cannot find the missing piece in their quiet, fragile puzzle in Infra (UK). We are mirrors (Mexico) is a film about self-reflection where the only thing that dominates the shadow is you. Robert (UK) slowly reveals how vital dance is to our existence. Cool About It (A Dance Film) (USA) is a short film shot in one day on an iPhone where conversation gives way to movement. Through intimate solos and shared moments, the colour of her movement (UK) portrays dance as both a private refuge and a quiet act of resistance, exploring women’s relationship with their bodies. A performer’s last dance with someone who’s no longer here is simply shot in black-and-white in Memories of a Dance (USA). Filmed in one take, young dancers take you on a journey through the streets of a Brazilian town, noticing a life less ordinary in ROUTE [not every day, but almost] (Brazil).
3:30pm–4:30pm: SHORTS: Stories in Black and White – a series of six short films shot entirely in black and white, followed by a Q&A with the artists. Amid a crushing panic attack, a teacher discovers an unexpected escape through air drumming, bringing her from chaos to calm in Spiral (UK). Moving Barcelona (UK) is a magical realist dance story about the Catalonian capital, contending with an identity crisis, haunted by the ghosts of its past. Unspun Flesh (China) is a work exploring the unfinished self, where identity shifts and perception revises. Counterpoise (Australia) is a stirring dance video made in collaboration with artists with and without disability, highlighting the noise of life outside, and the quiet place within. BUMP (UK) is a celebration of pregnant bodies and acrobatic movement, challenging social expectations around people’s bodies during pregnancy. Boy’s a Bug (Czech Republic) is inspired by Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis and explores through ballet the grotesque transformation of a man into an insect.
5pm–6pm: FEATURE – DuEls – Through a series of short and visceral pieces performed in the form of a tour performance through The Vigeland Museum’s various rooms, the dance contributes to release the concentrated energy in Gustav Vigeland’s sculptures. By embracing the mythological nature of the sculptures, the dancers use their ephemeral bodies to portray the duality and inner struggles of Vigeland’s immortal sculptures. DuEls is choreographed by Belgian and French choreographer Damien Jalet and Erna Omarsdottir from Iceland, performed by dancers from Nagelhus Schia Productions and Iceland Dance Company.