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The award-winning social psychologist Dacher Keltner believes he’s found the answer to happiness: finding awe. In his new book, Awe: The Transformative Power of Everyday Wonder, he shows how this elusive, but powerful, emotion can have physical and psychological effects, impacting our bodies and brains. Anna Lapwood is an organist and conductor, and currently the Director of Music at Pembroke College, Cambridge. She is also a great believer in the transformative power of music. She regularly plays the Royal Albert Hall’s organ – described as ‘the voice of Jupiter’ – and believes listeners can feel the wonder vibrating through the music.Looking up at the night sky and contemplating galaxies far away is often seen as a sure way to elicit wonder, but the physicist Felix Flicker argues that it can be found much smaller and much closer to home. In The Magick of Matter he shows how truly inspiring crystalline specks of dust can be, and when they're combined the sky’s the limit.Producer: Katy HickmanImage: Anna Lapwood - Leeds Town Hall (Credit Tom Arber)

George Balanchine is one of the most revered and influential choreographers of the twentieth century. In this first major biography about his life Jennifer Homans offers an intimate portrait of the man who co-founded the New York City Ballet and brought the art form so spectacularly into the modern age. She explores his life and legacy, revealing a complicated genius who was inspired to choreograph dances from subjects as diverse as Spinoza’s philosophy to Orthodox icons, disrupting the norms of ballet and pushing the dancers into creative worlds of abstraction.Wayne McGregor is a contemporary titan of the dance world. He has just returned from Toronto where his ballet based on Margaret Atwood’s post-apocalyptic book, MADDADDAM, had its world premiere in a joint production for The Royal Ballet and the National Ballet of Canada. Wayne McGregor’s own dance company is celebrating its thirtieth anniversary and since its inception has been the experimental and creative forum for Wayne’s innovative choreographic style.Ballet Black was founded by Cassa Pancho just over twenty years ago in response to the lack of racial diversity in ballet and offers dancers of Black and Asian descent a platform to showcase their talents. The company has gone from strength to strength, continually overturning stereotypes and transforming the landscape of classical dance. In March 2023 the company will perform ‘Pioneers’ at the Barbican, comprising new and original work by award-winning choreographers Will Tuckett and Mthuthuzeli November. Producer: Natalia FernandezMusic credits: Wayne McGregor's MADDADDAM, Act 1 (except), original score by Max Richter. A co-production between the National Ballet of Canada and The Royal Ballet, inspired by the trilogy by Margaret Atwood. ‘Then or Now’. (ballet choreographed by Will Tuckett. The poetry of Adrienne Rich with music by Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber, arranged by Daniel Pioro. The poetry reading is by Michael Shaeffer.) Simon Rattle / Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra - Stravinsky: Apollon Musagete (Second Tableau, variation of Calliope

Johan Eklöf is a Swedish bat scientist on a mission. In The Darkness Manifesto (translated by Elizabeth DeNoma) he warns how light pollution is threatening the ancient rhythms of life. Many creatures across the world come to life at night – with bats specially adapted to fly using echolocation. By keeping the lights on we are disrupting entire ecosystems.But darkness can appear alien and frightening. The writer Kate Summerscale explores the phobias that haunt the imagination as the lights go off: nyctophobia, xylophobia and hypnophobia – intense and morbid fears of the dark, of forests and of falling asleep. But why do bumps in the night sound so much more unnerving than during the day? The neuroscientist Professor Geraint Rees focuses his research on seeking to understand the neural basis of consciousness and he explores how our different senses are integral to the way we perceive and experience the world around us.The forces of light and darkness are pitted against each other in the classic children’s story The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper, now adapted for BBC World Service radio, starting on Tuesday 20th December. Producer and co-adapter Simon McBurney creates a spine-tingling winter soundscape with the use of binaural sound, giving listeners using headphones a unique immersive experience.Producer: Katy Hickman