This autumn, award-winning Medway-based Icon Theatre presents its latest production, Ghost Ships at The Historic Dockyard Chatham from Wednesday 25 – Saturday 28 September 2024, commemorating 40 years since the former Royal Dockyard’s closure.

This new large-scale immersive dance-theatre work is a co-production with acclaimed Hip Hop dance company ZooNation: The Kate Prince Company, best known for their full-length dance works, including the West End show Message In A Bottle and Sylvia at The Old Vic starring Beverly Knight, and award-winning South Asian dance company, Amina Khayyam Dance Company.

Ghost Ships will combine Hip Hop and Kathak dance with spectacular set pieces, projections, spoken word, and an original new score. The work will feature a company of over 150 people including professional dancers, community performers and young people, and will be performed in No. 5 Covered Slip, a monumental structure where ships for the Royal Navy were made and launched for over 100 years.

Chatham Dockyard is one of the most historically significant Dockyards in the world. Operating from 1567 to 1984, its ships took part in early naval battles for territories including Jamaica, Barbados, Grenada and Bermuda and famous encounters such as the Battle of Trafalgar. Its ships brought munitions, supplies, and soldiers to territories across the British Empire including India and Bengal.

Through powerful athletic high-energy dance, Ghost Ships will take an unflinching look at the impact Chatham Dockyard and its ships have had on people’s lives, from local workers employed at the Dockyard to those living in communities around the world.

Ghost Ships will expose lesser-known stories and characters from the Dockyard’s history. These include Britain’s involvement in slavery and the leading figures who passed through the Dockyard – Olaudah Equiano and John Newton – who played a significant role in Abolition; the 20 women in the 1700s and 1800s who assumed men’s clothing to work at the Dockyard and in the Navy, including the first Black female sailor to serve in the Navy, and the impact the Dockyard’s ships have had on local immigration.

Ghost Ships has been inspired by and will include newly uncovered research and local oral histories from older members of Medway’s South Asian communities, Medway African and Caribbean Association, and from those working at the former Royal Dockyard during its final days.

Ghost Ships is being created by a collaborative creative team led by Icon Theatre’s Artistic Director Nancy Hirst with choreography from ZooNation: The Kate Prince Company led by its Associate Artistic Director Dannielle ‘Rhimes’ Lecointe, and Associate Choreography by Amina Khayyam, Artistic Director of Amina Khayyam Dance Company.

Nancy Hirst, Artistic Director at Icon Theatre said: “Icon creates theatre that tells unheard local stories with national significance; 2024 marks 40 years since the closure of Chatham’s former Royal Dockyard and it therefore seemed the right time for us to honour and commemorate the site’s past, one that has shaped both local and national identity through its shipbuilding past and links to the British Empire. Much celebrated for its historical significance and the cultural heritage beacon it has become, it’s important not to forget the Dockyard’s shipbuilding and colonial legacy that still impacts communities in Medway and across the world today. Through the power of theatre, Hip Hop, Kathak and music we will explore and celebrate different cultures and the diverse communities that make our society what it is today.”