Belgium's les BALLETS C de la B will return to The Joyce Theater with the New York premiere of Out of Context - For Pina, a 90-minute dance/theater piece created by the company's founder Alain Platel,from October 19 - 24. Tickets for The Joyce Theater debut engagement of les BALLETS C de la B start at $10 and can be purchased through JoyceCharge at 212-242-0800 or online at www.joyce.org. The Joyce Theater is located at 175 Eighth Avenue at 19th Street.
Out of Context - For Pina is an intimate, surreal, uninhibited dance/theater work that displays the company's continued investigation into how movement conveys human emotion. Inspired by chorea, a disorder of the nervous system resulting in hysteric and uncontrolled movements, the piece combines compression and contortion into a unique physical poetry that mirrors the accelerating anxieties of our time. This is a witty, highly original piece, with nine dancers clad only in underwear, performing wrenching movements on an empty stage to an eclectic score that includes Glenn Gould's landmark interpretations of Bach's Goldberg Variations, music by Ravel, and R&B hits. Created by Alain Platel, one of Europe's most highly-regarded dance artists, and members of the Belgian choreographic collective les BALLETS C de la B, the work is dedicated to dancer and choreographer Pina Bausch - Platel's friend, mentor and inspiration.
ABOUT les BALLETS C de la B
Founded in 1984 by Alain Platel on a dare and a joke, les BALLETS C de la B ("Les Ballets Contemporains de la Belgique") is a cacophonous, many-headed dance-theatre collective whose performances careen between surrealism, social psychology, slapstick and semiotics. Since its founding, the Ghent, Belgium-based physical theater collective has enjoyed great success both at home and abroad and has developed into an artistic platform for a variety of international choreographers and artists such as Christine De Smedt, Koen Augustijnen, Hans Van de Broeck and Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui. The company maintains its original principal of enabling artists from various disciplines and backgrounds to take part in the dynamic creative process.
A video illustrated Dance Talks will take place on Monday, October 11 from 6pm - 8pm at Joyce SoHo (155 Mercer Street). Curator, dramaturge, writer and NYU professor André Lepecki facilitates an exploration into les Ballets C de la B's work Out of Context-For Pina and a discussion about the ingenious way the choreographer Alain Platel combines humor, emotion and loss of control to create an atmosphere that narrows the divide between the performers and the audience. Dance Talks is a free event, however reservations are required and can be made by calling Call 646-792-8377.
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