What happens when the world around us seems to be falling apart, but the heart still seeks closeness, understanding and beauty?
“Along the Alleys, As the Leaves Pile Up” is a poetic dance performance that explores how people try to find each other and stay true to themselves at a time when everyday worries, global anxiety and virtual communication increasingly tear us apart.
The performance is inspired by Sally Rooney’s novel “It’s a Beautiful World, Where You Are”: a story of friendship, love and how young adults try to cope in a world that is simultaneously beautiful and painful, attractive and repulsive. The dance performance does not retell the events of the novel, but interprets its core – the longing for closeness and honesty. Personal moments alternate with quick, everyday fragments that resemble the letters and messages of the characters in the novel – attempts to reach out to another person. The choreography explores the fragile boundary between approach and distance, and the silence between these moments: pauses in which both doubt and beauty lie.
The international troupe brings together young and experienced dancers from Estonia and Italy. The production particularly speaks to a generation for whom Rooney's work is personal and familiar – but offers recognition to anyone who has ever felt a longing for closeness. "Along the Alleys, As the Leaves Pile Up" is like a letter to the viewer – written with bodies, movement, light and breath. It is a dance meditation on how to find beauty even when the world seems to have momentarily shifted.
Director: Renee Nõmmik
Dancers and co-choreographers: Tiina Ollesk, Simo Kruusement, Annachiara Gallo, Chiara Fiore, Markus Monak, Amanda Tender
Costumes and Stage Designe: Maarja Meeru
Premiere: 25 February 2026
Performances: 26–28 February 2026
Estonian Dance Agency Theatre Hall, Hobujaama 12, Tallinn
Recommended age 13+.
Renee Nõmmik: "This dance performance is inspired on the rhythm of the novel's composition, where narrative chapters alternate with long philosophical e-mails from the characters. The gap between the parts, or White Space - places of pause or transition - creates a change in the perception of time, distance between the characters and places where one can "breathe" and reflect. Choreographically, White Space is a time and place where the unspeakable can arise."
Supported by: Ministry of Culture, City of Tallinn.
Eesti Tantsuagentuur SA • Hobujaama tänav 12, 10117 Tallinn, Harju maakond, Estonia
