New Adventures in Doorstep Duets 2025 - My Feet Don’t Quite Touch the Floor
New Adventures are currently touring the 2025 edition of Doorstep Duets - dance for free in very unusual spaces all over the South East…
New Adventures in Doorstep Duets 2025: ‘My Feet Don’t Quite Touch the Floor’ by Shelby Williams, here danced by Ellie Peacock, Will Heron and Andrew Ashton. © Stephen Daly.
Matthew Bourne’s New Adventures
Doorstep Duets, 2025: My Feet Don’t Quite Touch the Floor
★★★✰✰
Walton-on-Thames, Walton Library
23 July 2025, 11:00 show
www.new-adventures.net
Walton Library
Most folks in the UK never see a live dance performance; I suspect they view it as something rather posh, something that other people do. I’ve long felt that ballet and dance ought to venture into supermarkets, high streets and shopping centres, giving short impromptu live performances to show people what they are missing. But by and large, it doesn’t happen and my big wish, from year’s back, of seeing Darcey Bussell dance in aisle 3 of Tesco’s in Grimsby, never happened…
So full credit to Matthew Bourne’s New Adventures for doing something to get dance out there over the last few years, even if it is not as well known and certainly not as reviewed as it should be.
Under the title ‘Doorstep Duets’, it was originally created in 2021 by New Adventures and Farnham Maltings as a response to social isolation (and the tribulations of Covid), ‘Offering free opportunities for local communities to enjoy world-class dance performances on their street, in their park, or through local community organisations.’
This year’s show is 15 minutes long and has been running since 1 July 2025, setting up shop in locations across Essex, Kent and Surrey. It finishes with a flourish at Suffolk’s Latitude Festival on 26 July. Recently, it has been performing multiple shows per day in various Surrey libraries, and I caught the second morning show in Walton-on-Thames. Later that afternoon, they would be giving two shows in West Molesey’s library.
My Feet Don’t Quite Touch the Floor is a new work especially for ‘Doorstep Duets’, choreographed by Shelby Williams — a New Adventures dancer since 1999, who has also been developing a freelance career in movement direction and choreography. What really endeared me to Williams was this quote in the blurbs: ‘My wish is that every person who watches this show leaves feeling more joyous than when they arrived.’ I can’t help but applaud any creative who considers the audience first and foremost. Breathlessly, she continues, ‘After seeing our show, if even one person embraces their differences and finds the bravery to share their own creativity with others, then in my mind this piece has been a resounding success. Now, let’s go change the world!’ I love it, and it made me determined to see her show.
The title is a quote from dancer and choreographer Gillian Lynne, who, back in the 1930s, was sent to a psychologist for being wholly disruptive at school. Strict schooling didn’t work for her, but the freedom of dance did. My Feet Don’t Quite Touch the Floor is about exploring ADHD, neurodivergent differences, and the power of daydreaming and pursuing one’s own creative path with passion and determination. Gulp — there’s a lot to cover in a 15-minute show with minimal sets.
The staging for My Feet isn’t prissy and can’t be given the rapid setup needed for a show that moves on so often. There is no attempt to create a stage or lay down a dance floor. It uses whatever space can be spared and conjures the ambiance of a 1930s schoolroom using three old-style desks and chairs, dressing its three dancers in era-appropriate gymslips and long shorts. The dancers (Will Heron, Rosanna Lindsey and Ellie Peacock in our show) are recent New Adventures joiners and all terrific actors, as you’d expect from Bourne’s company.
To the beat of a metronome, the school day starts with strict learning of tables, spelling and copying out lines. With no teacher present, it simply highlights the utter tedium of some schoolwork for kids. Rosanna Lindsey plays the lead character (the Gillian Lynne, if you like, but this is not a bio-dance), bored stiff and increasingly daydreaming. Joy and release come from exploring her own thoughts and finding her dance feet, and as the soundtrack enjoyably builds, her two schoolmates also begin to dream and express themselves. Some balloons are used as symbols for ideas that are both tethered and combined in various ways, and the three dancers increasingly play with their desks and chairs, at one point conjuring a glorious sailing ship. The soundtrack ends with a very young singer’s rendition of What a Wonderful World — generating a sweet ‘Ah’ from us all. The dance is all contemporary, bold and clear, though anyone looking for an actual duet will struggle — the concept of a duet doesn’t work in this narrative, and that’s a shame.
It’s all a rose-tinted view of what education, creativity and self-learning can be in a world that acknowledges neurological differences in ways that were never dreamt of in the past, with its one-size-fits-all mentality. The curmudgeon in me thinks, ‘Yeah, not quite that simple in the real world,’ but this is about dreams and thinking big — it truly prompts thought.
I can’t speak for other locations, but in Walton, the audience was nearly 100% pre-school children, with a smattering of shepherding parents and carers. For the youngsters, it was about seeing much expansive and bold movement and receiving the joyful, knowing gaze of a dancer ‘talking’ directly to them (particularly Ellie Peacock) — they lapped it up. And after the curtain metaphorically came down, some formed a free-roaming dance chain with the three stars of the show before a quick Q&A wrapped things up.
At its heart, My Feet Don’t Quite Touch the Floor feels like a piece that works well for youngsters, and I’m sure they all went home happier for it — job most definitely done for them. I’m a little less sure if the magical ambiance would be quite so strong if performed for an all-adult audience, but I applaud everyone involved in the creative and funding chain for taking dance out to the community and thrilling them. It’s a good initiative, and it really ought to be replicated in other parts of the country.