Se Gæst | The Guest returns with a question about who belongs

Theatre Village September 29, 2026 2 minutes read

By Grace Hatchell

A stranger washes up on England’s shores. The community that finds them is already in turmoil, and their arrival brings questions of blame, survival and belonging bubbling to the surface. That’s the starting point for Se Gæst | The Guest, a dance theatre production returning to the road this autumn.

North East choreographer and director Anthony Lo-Giudice brings together dance, live music, storytelling and puppetry to explore what people mean when they talk about Englishness. It sounds like a lot to carry on one stage, doesn’t it? But the show isn’t setting out to hand us one tidy answer. It draws on conversations with communities across England, including people whose views of national identity differ sharply.

Lo-Giudice’s own story sits within the work. Born in Palermo and brought up in the North of England, he arrived here as a child and turned to fantasy and storytelling to make sense of a new home. In The Guest, Old English language, folklore and mythology meet a world of collapsing cities, disappearing forests and storms. It all sounds rather dreamlike, though the questions beneath it are very much of the here and now.

I’m particularly interested in what happens when those conversations become movement rather than a debate across a table. Who gets welcomed? Who is treated as a stranger? And how do we decide which stories about England we hold on to? There’s plenty for an audience to take away and chew over on the journey home.

The tour opens at ARC Stockton Arts Centre on Saturday 3 October 2026, before visiting Darlington, Bradford and Durham. A Berwick date and further performances in London and Italy are planned for 2027.

Tour dates