About the show

How do you harness the raw power, energy, and freedom of dance in a space that belongs to everyone?

This question has driven the work of choreographer Sharon Eyal and underground club innovator Gai Behar for over a decade. In R.O.S.E., they present their most fully realised response, an immersive performance that brings together contemporary dance, club culture, and communal experience.

Eyal, who began dancing as a child and became one of the youngest members and choreographers at the Batsheva Dance Company, met Behar in a nightclub in the late 90s. They connected over a shared appreciation for the intensity and collective release of nightlife. Behar, struck by the visceral force of Eyal’s studio work, encouraged her to step beyond traditional frameworks and create on her own terms. Together, they’ve since developed a distinct choreographic language; hypnotic, precise, emotionally charged, that’s been presented across major stages internationally.

Over time, the pair became increasingly interested in dissolving the formal separation between performer and audience. They sought to challenge the structures of the traditional theatre, removing the pit, the proscenium, and the implied distance. They envisioned a space that allowed for real-time exchange between bodies in motion, dancers and audience alike.

Their long-standing idea found a new path forward through a collaboration with Caius Pawson, founder of the London-based music and arts organisation Young. After visiting the studio, Pawson responded immediately to the physicality and clarity of the dancers’ movement. His role became pivotal in connecting the world Eyal and Behar had built with a wider artistic community and contemporary music landscape.

The creative team came to understand that music for this work couldn’t be static or pre-set. It had to be alive, able to respond to what was happening in the space and moment. This led them to work with pioneering DJ Ben UFO on the first two iterations of R.O.S.E, whose deep knowledge of sound systems, rave culture, and emotional pacing helped shape a musical language that could move with the dancers and the audience from moment to moment.

R.O.S.E. premiered at Manchester International Festival in 2023, transforming the historic New Century Hall into a space that was both stage and dance floor. It went on to premiere at Park Avenue Armory’s Drill Hall in 2024. At each performance, dancers and audiences shared a shifting, collective rhythm, at times still, at times urgent, anchored by the live DJ set from Ben UFO.

For its third iteration at Sadler’s Wells East, R.O.S.E. takes form inside a bespoke club architecture created within the auditorium. Eight dancers share the floor with audiences, allowing for an immediate, unscripted exchange of presence and energy. This version sees Eyal, Behar and Young joined by Call Super for nights of freedom and movement.

Sharon Eyal
Sharon Eyal Co-founder, co-artistic director, and choreographer of S-E-D, is a visionary artist whose daring creations have captivated audiences around the world. Renowned for her groundbreaking collaborations, she has worked with global icons such as Christian Dior Couture and music labels like Young (including artists Jamie xx, and Koreless), Ben UFO as well as visual artist Georges Rouy and leading galleries including Hannah Barry.

Eyal’s work has been showcased at premier venues and festivals worldwide, including the Manchester International Festival. Her achievements have earned her prestigious accolades, including the title of Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters in France, the FEDORA Prize for Ballet and being an Associate Artist with Sadler’s Wells Theatre.

Gai Behar
Co-founder and co-artistic director of S-E-D, is a trailblazing producer who contributed to the beginning of Tel Aviv’s music, arts, and nightlife scene from 1999 to 2005 with groundbreaking techno events and multidisciplinary art productions. Partnering as a co-creator with Sharon Eyal since 2005, Behar has co-created acclaimed works for leading dance companies worldwide. Together, their creations have been showcased at the most prestigious venues like Opera de Paris, Park Avenue Armory in New York, Sadler’s Wells, and the Montpellier Danse Festival, cementing their status as innovators at the intersection of dance, art, fashion and culture.

Young
Young is a music and arts organization built around the London-based independent record label and management company. Young nurtures long-term creative relationships with groundbreaking artists including The xx (Jamie xx, Romy, Oliver Sim), FKA twigs, Robyn, Sampha, Kamasi Washington, Ethan P. Flynn, John Glacier, Koreless, Two Shell, Mechatok, and more.

This ethos extends into the visual arts through Young Space, a multidisciplinary studio and incubator based in East London. Young Space offers artists the time, resources, and freedom to develop and present work across music, exhibition, film, design, and installation. As part of its wider creative practice, Young has collaborated with leading voices and institutions in contemporary culture, including Sharon Eyal, Kahlil Joseph, A.G. Rojas, Wales Bonner, Serpentine Galleries, Park Avenue Armory and Manchester International Festival.

Call Super
Over the course of the last decade Call Super has run a path that remains their own, littering influence here and there. One of the key DJs that helped herald a renewed focus on the best of the UK’s turn of the millennium techno and house sound, Call Super took a blueprint set out by expansive Detroit pioneers and updated it in their own enigmatic way. Defined by a meticulous approach to the composition, production, art direction and presentation of their work, every release is a colourful world that gives life to the shadows and throws a mist over the boundaries that have become so commonplace in electronic music.

Back to R.O.S.E – Sharon Eyal, Gai Behar, Young and Call Super