Inside the Urgency of Dance Again at The Cockpit
After the success of our 2025 Camden Fringe Interviews, we thought it only right to attempt a repeat for 2026. So throughout July we’ll be publishing new interviews each day to give a taste of what to expect from London’s best fringe theatre festival. The festival starts Monday 3 August this year, so we may give ourselves a couple of days off inbetween the end of the interviews and the first shows… then again, we might not.
You can find out more about Camden Fringe, along with details of every show playing this August here. You can also find all of this year’s interviews as they are published here.
“A memorial. A rave. A refusal.” These three words form the emotional spine of Dance Again, an urgent and deeply evocative new play arriving at The Cockpit this August for Camden Fringe 2026.
Conceived on the way to a psytrance festival while reflecting on the Nova festival tragedy, the production leans directly into the sacred utopia of the electronic music community. It deliberately challenges how we talk about modern acts of terror, stripping away the polarising political noise to focus entirely on a simple, enduring truth: that people seeking joy in a field are simply people seeking joy.
Fusing underground electronic music, striking visual projections, and raw physical storytelling, Dance Again explores the duality of human nature; our immense capacity to inflict pain versus our infinite power to love and heal. We sat down with writer/producer Andreas Bedorf and lead performer Stephanie Christodoulidou to discuss the frequency of ultraviolet light, navigating control on stage, and reclaiming the sunrise.
If you had to describe the vibe of your show in just one sentence, what would it be and how does it manifest on stage?
ANDREAS: A memorial. A rave. A refusal. You arrive at a festival, witness its destruction, and then refuse to let this be the end of it; experiencing joy and grief in the exact same space.
Why is 2026 the crucial moment for this show to be seen?
ANDREAS: Because we’re in a strange and difficult place around how we talk about certain acts of terror; who deserves grief, who doesn’t, and whether the dead can be mourned without it becoming a political statement. Dance Again refuses that logic and works with the premise that people seeking joy in a field are simply people seeking joy. All the human values a dance floor represents – unity, joy, love – are worth defending no matter who dances. Right now, that feels incredibly urgent.
What was the “eureka moment” that made you realize this story had to be told?
ANDREAS: I was on the way to a psytrance festival and I couldn’t stop thinking about Nova. About what it means to go to a festival knowing what can happen. The people I was dancing with were the same people, listening to the same DJs, seeking the same thing. There’s a certain utopia being created on the dance floor, and when it becomes the scene of the worst humans are capable of, it’s a special kind of devastating. I couldn’t deal with that any other way than writing about it.
What elements of the text have been the most fascinating to play with during rehearsals?
STEPHANIE: The use of the wonderful rave and festival community as a backdrop for a deep dive into humans’ capacity to inflict pain, but also to do immense good. There are lots of dualities in this play; life and death, trauma and resilience, entrapment and freedom. Even from the auditions, I felt that the team had the level of care and determination to explore this deeply traumatic event in a way that would be both safe and impactful.
Stephanie, what specifically drew you to your character, Noa?
STEPHANIE: Noa is a version of me that I still sometimes struggle with. I was instantly drawn to her relationship with control and her hesitation in truly letting go. Just like her, I also like feeling in control, so going on a journey with her feels like a sort of introspection. She has strength, but also many vulnerable moments, and I wanted to be with her every step of the way to help her get to a point of healing and mental balance.
Fringe setups demand minimalist production. How does the staging mimic an underground electronic space?
STEPHANIE: Thankfully, we don’t need much set to tell the story. We tell it using the music, some visual projections, and the raw look of the characters. In some ways, the structural simplicity actually helps, it mimics the stripping-back of an underground rave. It’s just open space, music, and the people.
What does ultimate success look like for you this August, beyond ticket sales?
ANDREAS: Someone dancing in the foyer afterwards. The play asks whether joy can be reclaimed after horror, and if the audience walks out needing to move, needing music, and connecting to each other, then that’s the answer.
If you had to describe the show as a colour, what would it be?
STEPHANIE: Ultraviolet. Psychedelic, rave-y, and technically invisible unless you have the exact right light to see it. The play lives in that frequency, carrying an undeniable joy underneath the grief.
Is there a question you feel audiences might wonder that you want to address directly?
ANDREAS: Do you need to be high to fully enjoy the show? No! But if you ever have been, you might get nostalgic at points. It will be a very special trip for sure, though at times, maybe a bit too dark and scary for watching it high… we wouldn’t recommend it!
Many thanks to Andreas and Stephanie for their time. You can catch Dance Again when it plays at The Cockpit from Monday 10 to Wednesday 12 August.
