Levantes Dance Theatre are appearing at Shrewsbury Flower Show this summer. The fabulous troupe are best known for their eccentric outfits, aerial performances and elaborate props, all of which will be present and correct in their Quarry Park performance of High Tea (With A Twist).

What’s On caught up with the company’s artistic director & founder, Eleni Edipidi, to find out more…

Can you tell us a little bit about the company and how you began, Eleni?
We started in 2005. Myself and my friend, Bethanie Harrison, are dancers and we launched the company after my Masters at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music & Dance. We had help from our visual & multimedia director, Gopan Iyadurai, who is a visual artist. The core idea was to use dance and the visual to create a story. Bethanie has left to have her family now, but three years ago, we registered as a company, and we’ve since had the opportunity to grow and involve more people in the artistic process - people who are experts in their field. 

How would you describe the style of dance?
I would call it dance theatre. We began to explore circus and aerial work a few years ago, and it’s very physical. It’s a marriage of dance and the physicalisation of characters. Our performances are based around a storyline. We really think about how these characters would walk and move and what quirky elements they would have. We use a lot of exaggeration to match our circus elements and the techniques we use, such as the aerial work. 

The performance you’re presenting at Shrewsbury Flower Show is called High Tea (With A Twist). How did you come up with the idea?
All our performances are usually 10-minute cabaret pockets - very visual and easy to travel around. But for High Tea, we’ve created a 20-minute show, with some crowd interaction before and after.
The idea came after we saw a call-out from the Mayor of London and Battersea Arts Centre. They wanted to bring work and tourism back into London post-pandemic and to use outdoor art to celebrate British culture. We knew we had so much material, so we started doing some research and choreographing a piece. 

We have some equipment - called a lollipop hoop - and the base has a ring on top which looks just like the top of a cake stand. So we thought, why not do a High Tea? Very British, very fun, and there’s a bit of a love story at this tea party…

How do you decide on the costumes and the visual elements?
I’ve got my special notepad, and I always start by drawing. I decide the colours I want to use for the performance and then have a look in our wardrobes to see what we’ve got. 

We love to recycle and reuse - make something old into something new. For High Tea, I found some Bridesmaid dresses in a charity shop near Liverpool. We had a bit of a budget for this project, so we worked with an amazing costume designer called Abby Grewcock. She added a beautiful big skirt underneath the dresses to make them bigger and more eccentric. And then, for practicality, because we couldn’t do the acrobatics on the ring in the dresses, she’s designed this lovely little undergarment that we can get up on the hoops in. She’s also printed a specific print for us, so everything connects - from the flowers in our sets to the headpieces on our heads. We’ve been very crafty with this one. 

You like to get the audience involved. Tell us how you do that?
Audience participation depends on who’s in our audience - not everyone wants to be approached but usually if there are little ones there, they love to get involved and we play with them before the performance begins. 

We like to use a lot of mime because there’s no speech in the actual routine. We do this especially before the performance starts, as it helps to build up the characters we’re portraying. 

How are rehearsals going so far?
Good! We’ve performed High Tea a few times now, but as the performance at the flower show gets closer, we’ll do a few more. We’ve got to make sure all our props are sorted – we had a problem with our umbrella from the last show, so we need to get that fixed. 

What are you most looking forward to about performing at Shrewsbury Flower Show?
I’ve always wanted to perform at a flower show, but they’re very hard to get into. When Shrewsbury approached us, I was thrilled. I used to work for a company called Everybody Dance, and we used to perform in Shrewsbury, so I’m excited to come back. I think that visually, our performance will fit in at the flower show so beautifully. 

Levantes Dance will perform at Shrewsbury Flower Show which takes place in the town’s Quarry Park on Fri 12 & Sat 13 August. Tickets are available here.