DV8 PHYSICAL THEATRE

12-15 october
Teatro Argentina

In a world that «exports democracy» do we really have the liberty to do what we wants to? A striking personality and at the same time far from the “star system”, Lloyd Newson brings these issues together in the question “Can we talk about this?”, his latest work created together with his group DV8 which will début in Rome in the 2011 Romaeuropa Festival.

From the street burning of Salman Rushdie's book “The Satanic Verses”, the murder of the Dutch director Theo Van Gogh and the cartoons published in the Denmark which caused violent disorders and the death of many persons, Newson takes inspiration for his latest performance which addresses some of today’s most sensitive issues; multicultural policies, cultural censorship, freedom of press and the liberty of expression.

“We can talk about this?” is a later work by the director and choreographer of this “Physical Theatre” and one of the leading exponents of this new «documentary style» theatre. Born in Melbourne, Australia in 1957, in his youth he studied dance for a short while with the New Zealand Ballet to then move to London to study at the School of Contemporary Dance. After a fiery start with a première in the ’80's with the Extemporary Dance Theatre, he founded DV8 together with other artists and became its first director. This was the start of his theatrical-choreographic research on human behaviour later, giving rise to a series of powerful theatrical productions of a social relevance for the issues presented with a penetrating insight into reality. “Enter Achilles”, “The cost of living” and “Just for show” featured in the 1998, 2003 and 2005 Romaeuropa Festivals represent a chronology of the incredible creative evolution of this artist towards his dance-theatre style in which the word is on equal footing with the body and movement and his refined use of technology.

Following his previous works “To Be Straight With You”, and “Can we talk about this?”, Newson now directs his technological verve towards a new “documentary style”, with an ever-surprising interaction of the protagonists on stage (11 dancer/actors) with short film clips assembled from media archives and interviews written especially by writers, artists and politicians.