Tala Lee-Turton launches Red Robin Productions with the world premiere of Katya Bourvis’ PIA, set to music by Hannah Peel.
Barnsley-born Tala Lee-Turton announces the formation of Red Robin Productions ahead of the world premiere of Katya Bourvis’ dance and visual art work PIA, created in collaboration with multi award-winning composer Hannah Peel, in partnership with a major London venue in 2026.
Tala entered the creative industries through classical ballet, being one of only a handful of UK dancers to have graduated from the Bolshoi Ballet Academy, Moscow. She has since evolved her practice as a dance artist and creative producer to span cross-sectoral projects in contemporary dance, theatre, visual art and research. Katya is an award-winning movement director and choreographer, who recently made her debut with Flux, for Ballet D’Jerri, to critical acclaim. She works across dance, fashion, film and theatre. Following four years of collaboration on a series of live performances, Tala and Katya are developing a new production, signalling a pivotal moment in their careers.
Through Red Robin Productions, Tala aims to bring bold new productions to audiences across the UK, exploring the tension between collective experiences and personal stories, often expressed from unconventional perspectives. PIA will be the first work launched by Red Robin Productions.
PIA, conceived, directed and choreographed by Katya, is a meditation on the fleeting nature of human existence, memory and imagination told through live dance, music, archival material, and visual art. Inspired by and set to Hannah Peel’s celebrated album Mary Casio: Journey to Cassiopeia, performed live, the production follows Barnsley woman Pia, over three generations of her life as she journeys through the labyrinth of her mind, between the closed coal mines of her hometown and the increasingly vivid dreams of space exploration.
The announcement coincides with the reissue of Hannah Peel’s 2017 seven-movement odyssey on 31 October via Real World Records. Composed for analogue synthesizers and a traditional 29-piece colliery brass band, Mary Casio: Journey to Cassiopeia explores an elderly pioneering musicians lifelong dream to leave her home in the mining town of Barnsley and journey into space, a narrative that now forms the heartbeat of PIA.
More information about PIA will be announced in the New Year.
Image © Camilla Greenwell
