Fresh from a successful run at this year's Fringe (where the company won a Herald Angel award), Scottish Dance Theatre is back on tour with a new repertoire of dynamic, diverse and utterly original dance theatre.

The Autumn Tour features brand-new work by internationally renowned Portuguese choreographer Rui Horta, and revisits Artistic Director Janet Smith's Forty Minutes, Liv Lorent's LUXURIA and Michael Popper's In fact you can keep a good dog down, but the dog - not knowing this - will keep trying to get up.

Rui Horta's Mute premiered internationally at Festival de Sintra in Portugal in July to packed houses, standing ovations and critical acclaim and now has its UK premiere at the Dundee Rep on Thursday September 15. This is the second time Rui has worked with SDT - the company performed his duet Broken in Autumn 2003 ('near perfect' Sunday Herald, 'a smouldering choreographic short' Dance Europe). Rui is based in Portugal and has created works for other groups such as Ballet Gulbenkian, Cullberg Ballet, Grand Théâtre de Genève, Icelandic Ballet, Nederlands Dans Theater II, Ballet National de Marseille and Phoenix Dance Theatre.

Mute is an intensely physical and powerful piece that looks at the tension created by secrets, lies, past guilt and present betrayal - the things that can never be spoken and should never be spoken.

The company will also perform Artistic Director Janet Smith's Forty Minutes ('alive with excitement, wit and invention' The Stage), which premiered in Autumn 2004. Janet has created 5 works for SDT over her 9 years as Artistic Director of the company and this is her first work since choreographing the well-received and highly regarded High Land in 2001.

Forty Minutes is a quirky and reflective work that examines the search for lost identity and asks 'Who am I?' With a melodic original score by composer Chris Benstead and imagery by video artist Pernille Spence, Forty Minutes is a curious look at our personal journeys.

Scottish Dance Theatre is a dynamic, vibrant and versatile company guided by Janet Smith. The Dundee-based company won the prestigious Critic's Circle National Dance Award for Outstanding Repertoire (Modern) in 2003.


SDT is touring to:

Dundee (Dundee Rep, Thurs 15th - Sat 17th Sept, 8pm),
Birmingham (The Patrick Centre, Thurs 22nd - Fri 23rd Sept)
Hamilton (Lecture Demonstration only - Tues 4th Oct),
Musselburgh (Brunton Theatre, Thurs 6th Oct)
Ardrishaig (Lecture Demonstration only - Ardrishaig Public Hall, Wed
12th Oct)
Glasgow (Tramway, Fri 14th Oct)
Swindon (Lecture Demonstration only - Swindon Town Hall Studios, Tues
18th Oct)
Newbury (The Corn Exchange, Thurs 20th Oct)
Kilmarnock (Lecture Demonstration only - Palace Theatre, Tues 25th Oct)
Stirling (macrobert, Thurs 27th Oct),
Dundee (The Space, Sat 5th Nov),
Aberdeen (HMT, Wed 9th Nov)
Strontian (Arainn Shuaineirt, Sat 12th Oct),
Ullapool (MacPhail Centre, Tues 15th Nov),
Fortrose (Fortrose Community Theatre, Fri 18th Nov),
St Andrews (The Byre Theatre, 22nd Nov)

For more information about SDT, the Autumn Tour and artistic collaborators, please go to www.scottishdancetheatre.com/home