Carmen Jones, the 1st in a series of 3 Hip-Hoperas: Don Giovanni in 2014 & Madame Butterfly. Workshops for 100 dancers for 12 weeks. Then rehearsals for 4 months before 1 week in the theatre preparing for 4 shows over 3 days. We want to encourage young people to stick at it and develop their skills over time - if they are not ready for a stage role in 2013, we want them to stay with us and try for 2014/2015, sustaining all the dance & interpersonal skills they learn with us.

We will work with dancers from 14-25yrs and introduce them to traditional operas & re-tell those stories through dance. They will dance to some original music, some re-mixed music & some music composed for us; expanding their culture, allowing themselves to show their community an aspect of their creativity hitherto unseen. We will give dancers production and media/PR responsibilities too.

For lovers of hip-hop to be introduced to opera & lovers of opera to be introduced to hip-hop, street-dance & the culture of young people, of whom they may well have negative prejudice. And by including all sizes & shapes, to overcome other prejudice. Plus showing off young dancers of 7, 8 & 9 who produce amazing results with our encouragement. We also want to focus attention on MK as a dance centre. We have so many wonderful dance professionals, yet so little recognition, we need more PR!