Lewis Walker to premiere a new performance as part of Serpentine’s Live Programme
Serpentine, in partnership with the Edinburgh Art Festival, presents Lewis Walker’s world premiere of Bornsick, a groundbreaking new performance this May at Round Chapel, London.
Lewis Walker, Bornsick, 2025, trailer, still. Film by Leah Walker. Courtesy the artists, Serpentine and EAF.
Serpentine, in partnership with Edinburgh Art Festival (EAF25), announces the world premiere of Bornsick, a new performance by choreographer and dancer Lewis Walker. Taking place at the Round Chapel in Lower Clapton, London, the work will be performed on 21 and 22 May 2025. Known for their boundary-pushing, interdisciplinary practice, Walker (they/them) brings a distinctive choreographic language to Serpentine’s acclaimed live programme.
Bornsick explores queerness, social conditioning, and the constructed self. Walker describes the work as a response to the systems we inherit—frameworks that shape us before we can define ourselves. Drawing on gymnastics, dance, and physical theatre, the performance reveals identity as a process of layering, referencing, and continuous reinvention. A body is assembled through learned gestures and imposed behaviours, only to uncover that even in its most deconstructed form, it remains another construct. In Bornsick, identity becomes an act of shapeshifting—always shifting, never settled.
Lewis Walker, Bornsick, 2025, trailer, still. Film by Leah Walker. Courtesy the artists, Serpentine and EAF.
After its London premiere, Bornsick will travel to Edinburgh for EAF25 in August 2025 as part of a co-commission between Serpentine and the festival. It joins a celebrated history of live works supported by Serpentine, with previous performances by artists such as Lenio Kaklea, Silas Riener, Bouchra Ouizguen, Simone Forti, and Serafine1369. The project is curated and produced by Kostas Stasinopoulos, Daisy Gould, Isobel Peyton Jones, and Andy Downie.
Date: 21 - 22 May 2025. Location: The Round Chapel, 1D Glenarm Rd, Lower Clapton, London E5 0LY. Price: £15. Concessions available. Book now.
The Cinnamon Club had completely flown under the radar for me. It is in a pocket of London I rarely visit, and even if I did, the building’s exterior gives little indication of what’s inside. But now that I’ve discovered it, I already have plans to return with my husband - and in my mind, a list of friends I would recommend it to…