The striking cover for the Brighton Festival 2019 programme shouts out loud who this year’s Guest Director is. Silhouetted in flowers, in stunning artwork by Simon Prades, is the unmistakeable profile of Malian musician Rokia Traoré.

Theatre for children can often be dismissed – a box to tick for parents who want to keep up with cultural practices; a job for actors who haven't quite made it in the mainstream; theatre that mums and dads want to see that works for their little ones, too.

There is a sense of loyalty from the Brighton audience awaiting Hofesh Shechter’s new work.

Sometimes you come across an artwork that changes the way you see the world. Tacita Dean’s film portrait of the American choreographer Merce Cunningham (main picture) is one such encounter.

There’s more than a touch of vaunting ambition in the idea of turning the Scottish Play into dance theatre. Without spoken text, named scenes or even a printed synopsis, it falls to choreography and direction to speak for them all.

With forelock-tugging celebrations of a choreographer who died 25 years ago and a summer visit by the Mariinsky the highest-profile events in the calendar, 2017 may not be remembered as a vintage year for British dance.

Even if Matthew Bourne were never to choreograph another step, he could fill theatres in perpetuity by rotating old stock. Cinderella, made in 1997, was the follow-up to his break-out hit Swan Lake but, never quite happy with it, he reworked it in 2010, replacing the musicians in the pit with a custom-made recording of an 82-piece orchestra.

Where does my voice come from? Whose is my body? It’s apt that these questions run deep through a work that was created jointly by an actor, Jonathon Young, and a choreographer, Crystal Pite.

Not every artist attains the kind of status that will allow their early works to be revived – or, when revived, greeted with commercial and critical success. This is something of a shame for those of us with a historical mindset who like seeing where an artist has come from and how they have developed.

Before this Sadler's Wells Flamenco Festival-opening performance of Israel Galván's show FLA.CO.MEN, my guest wanted to know what the show would be like.