Ipswich dancer Harry Clark returns home this weekend to perform with Scottish dance Theatre at the Jerwood DanceHouse. Arts editor Andrew Clarke spoke to him

Ipswich-born dancer Harry Clark will be returning to his hometown for the first time in seven years and it will also see his debut performance at the Jerwood DanceHouse. The Waterfront venue had yet to be built when he left Ipswich to attend the Royal Ballet School before heading off to Rambert School of Ballet and Contemporary Dance. On graduating in 2013 he joined Matthew Bourne’s New Adventures on the UK and international tour of Swan Lake before joining Scottish Dance Theatre last January.

Harry said that Ipswich has quite a reputation of supplying top flight dancers to international companies and DanceEast has to take a lot of the credit.

“Although I left Ipswich before the DanceHouse opened, DanceEast still did amazing work with the facilities they had. They were always encouraging and seeking to help me be the best that I could be.

“I started at Angela Rowe School of Dance in Ipswich, then joined DanceEast’s Suffolk Junior Dance Company as well as being part of the Royal Ballet School’s Mid and Senior associate programmes.

Harry said that he was thrilled to be bringing Scottish Dance Theatre’s new Double Bill to the DanceHouse because he had a hand in developing the new piece TuTuMucky by London-based choreographer Botis Seva. “It’s great to work in the studio with a choreographer because you never know how it is going to turn out. Every choreographer works in a different way and they all have a different vision, so our job is to try and interpret that.”

The double bill will consist of Dreamers, by Anton Lachky, which is about people who dare to dream while not being asleep. In this highly physical work, audiences are encouraged to make sense of apparent nonsense, and challenged to see the close relationship between reality and surrealism.

The second piece TuTuMucky is set to a score of original music by beat producer Torben Lars Sylvest. The work is inspired by an interest in social order, structured lifestyles and hierarchies, and explores how, in a world full of order, we find peace in chaos.

Scottish Dance Theatre is at the Jerwood DanceHouse on October 20-21.