Company Chameleon’s Refuse and Umbra Premieres in Manchester

Kevin Edward Turner MBE launched Company Chameleon after meeting co-founder Anthony Missen at Trafford Youth Dance Theatre in the mid-1990s.

After developing their talent in Trafford, the pair went on to train with the Northern School of Contemporary Dance in Leeds before returning home to launch their dance company, now based in Openshaw, in 2007.

In a first for the company, director Turner has taken two celebrated pieces of outdoor work and reimagined them for an indoor stage. The tour starts at HOME in Manchester on 6 February 2026.

Inspired by Géricault’s iconic painting The Raft of the Medusa, Refuse exposes the harsh realities faced by asylum seekers and displaced people, whilst the companion piece Umbra explores the challenging places within ourselves we feel we cannot share and the universal search for understanding and acceptance.

Performed together for the first time, Turner says the pair of works are natural bedfellows, Umbra exploring challenging lived experiences from an individual perspective and Refuse, through an external, societal lens.

Both pieces are danced in Chameleon’s trademark style, drawing upon a myriad of styles and approaches such as contemporary, breakin, hip hop, house, capoeira, circus, and African influences underpinned by theatrical sensibilities.

A play on words, Refuse features five dancers and explores the lives and experiences of people who are ‘forgotten, powerless, and not permitted to cross invisible lines on a map – those of us who are refused and treated like refuse.’

Turner says that as a mixed heritage person, he has always been interested in the movements of people and the motivations behind the journeys they choose to take. Investigating notions of desperation and the enduring human spirit, he says Refuse explores the human condition, how we navigate exclusion and exploitation, and what we will do to survive at all costs.

Latin for shadow, Umbra spotlights exclusion, repression, and self-denial and explores what we hide and what we reveal. Danced by a trio, it is an overdue invitation to pause and understand ourselves better.

Refuse is choreographed by Turner and premiered in Manchester in 2023, whilst Umbra was choreographed in 2022 by Chameleon co-founder and former co-artistic director Anthony Missen. Missen left the company after 18 years in 2025.

Two new works from the Chameleon Youth dance company, who are aged from 11 to 22, will open the show.

Artistic director, Kevin Edward Turner MBE, said: “Obscura is about bringing what we hide into the light; the shadows within ourselves, and the lives society would rather not see.

“Umbra looks inward at the parts of ourselves we deny, while Refuse looks outward at exclusion. Together, the two works explore different aspects of the human experience and share stories relevant to the world we’re living in right now.”

Turner says that reimagining the two works for the theatre has been incredibly exciting.

“The indoor space allows us to work with time, tension, and atmosphere in a much more detailed way, and lighting becomes almost like another performer. It’s given the pieces a new depth, while still keeping the raw, physical energy that defines the company’s performance style,” he said.

“If you want to be moved by evocative and deeply meaningful art, then Obscura is for you. Both works will move you and invite you to engage in storytelling around relevant issues that are often simplified or dehumanised in the media and public debate.”