David Mead talks to Motionhouse artistic director Kevin Finnan about the company’s forthcoming new show, Hidden, which premieres at Warwick Arts Centre in February.
“It’s a very personal show for me,” says Kevin Finnan about Hidden. “I have very strong feelings about the things we see around the world. I have children and I’d like to think that we are making a better world for them to live in. I felt that I needed to stand up and say we need to be together; not ‘us and them’ all the time.”
Motionhouse’s new show is about how, in the darkest moments, humanity does instinctively come together to help each other, even if that instinct has become somewhat hidden in today’s very fast world, a place where people can get so involved with themselves that they often do not think about others in the way they used to.

during a rehearsal for Hidden
Photo Dan Tucker
“There are terrible things happening: wars, environmental and natural disasters. After such events our lives are no longer the same. We struggle. How do we survive these experiences? It’s at these times that we need each other more than ever. And the best of humanity is when we really work for each other, putting others before ourselves, helping people come out of the dark and move on.”
Inspiration came from books too. Finnan specifically cites Jacqueline Harpman’s I Who Have Never Known Men. “It’s only got three chapters. Really long chapters. It’s just about a group of women who find themselves in prison underground. They don’t know why or how they got there. And what happens after that. Their world has gone. It’s just the feel of it, the description of it. It made me think about where we are and that I shouldn’t be silent in these times. I have this opportunity to communicate with people. So, I should do it in my way. That’s why I wanted to do it.”
At times narrative, and at others abstract, Hidden is guaranteed to come with Motionhouse’s trademark blend of live performance and digital projections, athletic choreography and pulsing soundscape. Yet, watching a run through of Act One, even without those projections and the eventual score, it is clearly a little different.

Photo Dan Tucker
With funding from the Future High Streets Fund, the rest of the Grade 2 listed Town Hall is presently being renovated and will become a creative centre for the whole town.
Finnan explains, “When I came to do this show, I knew I wanted to go about it in a different way. You have to keep developing. You can’t just do what you did last time. I felt we had got to a point where we could move on, and the thing that really needed to move on was me.
“Normally, whenever I make work, while I might have a solo, I tend to work a lot with the ensemble. There’s more solos and duets in this than I’ve ever done, but I feel I’ve really extended my dance language too, not only the range of movement but the nature of movement, the way that we see people and relate to them.”
Watching the rehearsal in the finely decorated Assembly Room at Leamington’s late-Victorian Town Hall, the company’s creative hub, that change is immediately apparent as Hidden opens with a series of very human, very real duets and solos.
“I want you to identify with these people. I want you to feel for them, feel that maybe they’re expressing something that you recognise and that might move you. So, as we go on this journey, you go with them.”
Finnan says he feels like he’s taking a massive risk with Hidden. “But I’m just going for it, and seeing what I can do and where I can get to.” And, as he says, you can’t keep doing the same thing. “People get bored of it. You have to find something new. Often, the longer your career gets, the more challenging that is, but the opposite is true for me. Things have really been opening up for me creatively over the last five or ten years. It’s been an interesting journey.”
There’s a great deal of the dancers themselves in the characters seen in the piece, says Finnan, who explains how he drove them through abstract brief after abstract brief. “That’s very frustrating for them because they want to know exactly what they’re doing. I did it because I wanted them to find something in themselves when they were making it. I can then structure that into the form that I want, in the way that I want it to work.”
Without giving too much away, Finnan explains that Hidden will use film to give all the dancers “their place in the world.” One will be seen in a street. “But he’s in his own personal, problematic world.” The camera flies in through a window to find a couple in an apartment block. “They’ve got this loving relationship. That’s really nice because I wanted not everything to be dysfunctional or awful or terrible.” Another dancer in another apartment appears in the computer game he is playing on his TV.
Although Hidden has been percolating for about two years, Finnan says it was “really, really tough to find the right form. We were making lots and lots of material, but we had no structure. I was asking what it was I was doing. It took a long time to distil it down to something that is really simple. But sometimes simple is best. It is always best, to be honest, I think. So, you have the first bit where you meet all these people and you engage with them. Then these people are plunged into the dark. And then you’ve got to hope that you can get them out. And once I got to that structure, things fell into place.”
Physically, the set for Hidden comprises two three-dimensional triangular structures. “I always tend to work with sets, because I always want to have context of some kind. They also give you a language, and they give you form.”
For a while, Finnan and set designer Simon Dormon struggled for ideas. Then one day, they found themselves playing with two triangles, and things started to fall into place.
“The thing about the triangles that’s super exciting, is the interaction with the digital. In the commercial world, they can map moving objects, but you need about £250,000 worth of tech, which we don’t have. So, what we have to do, is have the dancers push them around at the right time and to the right place. And we project on the back wall and the triangles, which helps to create depth and a living, vibrant, three-dimensional environment.”
Look out too for a scene that sees two dancers wrapped in cellophane. “It’s special and totally biodegradable; about ten times more expensive than the usual.” Finnan sums it up perfectly when he says he feels the image is quite tragic and troubling but beautiful at the same time, which he adds is “probably the essence of where the first act goes, really.”
But Finnan keeps coming back to the dance itself. “I’m showing a lot more dance in this than I have for a long time. What I find really interesting is to continually remake the image that you’re watching. What I’m aiming for is a beautiful flow of imagery with movement. It’s really fun to be in this position and be able to make these things.
Hidden has already attracted a lot of interest. After Warwick Arts Centre, it will embark on a 14-venue premiere tour across the UK and Europe, followed by a second 17-venue tour starting later next year. That’s on top of the continuing and increasingly in-demand outdoor work and the success of Motionhouse’s Christmas show, Starchitects Save Santa. “The amount of touring that we do now is phenomenal. The amount of people we reach is incredible.”
The company does have a wide range of work to offer. “We’ve got solos, duets, trios, quartets that we can do. We have Wild and Captive and all that sort of stuff. But, as Motionhouse has become more and more successful, to survive, we need to get into bigger and bigger venues. There has to be enough money in ticket sales to make it viable.”
And costs have increased dramatically, especially when it comes to touring in Europe. Finnan explains how, while one driver and truck might take everything to and from whatever country they are visiting, another local company now has to be employed to move everything between venues while there. “Touring is financially really challenging.”
But while it might be insane and a difficult time, “As long as there’s demand, we’ll do everything we can to get there. And it’s great that people want to come and see the shows. That’s really good.”
“But I love the work, and I will keep at it until either the system collapses or I do.” I suspect that’s not going to happen anytime soon!
Co-commissioned by FABRIC, Birmingham Hippodrome and Warwick Arts Centre with additional support from the John Ellerman Foundation and Innovate UK, Hidden premieres at Warwick Arts Centre, Coventry, from February 6-9, 2025.
It then heads off on an extensive tour across the UK and Europe, with early dates including Aberystwyth Arts Centre, Lighthouse Poole, Lawrence Batley Theatre Huddersfield, six venues in Denmark and Germany, New Theatre Peterborough, Theatre Royal Winchester, Malvern Theatres and Yvonne Arnaud Theatre Guildford.
A second tour will follow later in the year, starting at the Birmingham Hippodrome, with touring continuing into 2026 and beyond.