Press Release: Philippe Decouflé Company's Panorama at Sadler's Wells, 2 - 4 November 2012

[Jan McNulty]

Philippe Decouflé Company DCA

Panorama

Sadler’s Wells

UK Premiere

Friday 2 - Sunday 4 November 2012

Performances at 7.30pm

Tickets: £12 - £38

Ticket Office: 0844 412 4300 or www.sadlerswells.com

 

Celebrated French choreographer, dancer, mime artist and director Philippe Decouflé presents the UK premiere of his company’s new show Panorama at Sadler’s Wells from 2 - 4 November 2012.

 

Decouflé’s imagination has been delighting audiences for nearly 30 years. His latest piece draws on the company’s extensive repertoire, dating back to 1983 with Vague Café. Panorama features ‘re-writes’ of the company’s past glories with generous helpings of humour and astonishingly full throttled performances by seven dancers, taking in elements from eight of the company’s earlier works.

 

Among the earlier pieces inspiring Panorama are Codex (1986), with its army of strange flipper-equipped microbes; Triton (1998), which plays with every dance and circus cliché imaginable; Shazam (1998), with its kaleidoscope of frames, surfaces and mirrors; and 2006’s Sombrero, mixing video and Chinese shadows to Claude Ponti’s texts.

 

Philippe Decouflé was born in Paris in 1961. He trained in circus skills at the Annie Fratellini Ecole du Cirque and the Marceau Mime School, later training in contemporary dance at the Centre National de Danse Contemporaine. He worked briefly as a solo dancer before founding Compagnie DCA in 1983. The company is based at a former electrical works in the Parisian suburb of Saint Denis.

As well as creating pieces for his own company, Decouflé has worked for the Lyon Opera Ballet and Cirque du Soleil (he choreographed and directed their production IRIS). He also choreographed the music video for New Order’s True Faith, which won Best Music Video at the 1988 BRIT Awards.

 

“A man who knows how to use the power of illusion to make life tip into dream and beauty” Le Monde

[Julie 2 Milner]

I have tickets for this. My husband saw him in Canada a few years back and said if he ever came here we must go. It will be a first my husband and I going to a dance performance together that our son isn't in.lol