DV8 Physical Theatre
| Formation | 1986 |
|---|---|
| Founders | Lloyd Newson Michelle Richecoeur Nigel Charnock |
| Purpose | Dance Company |
| Location | |
|
Region served
|
UK and Internationally |
|
Artistic Director
|
Lloyd Newson |
| Website | Official Website |
DV8 Physical Theatre is a physically integrated dance company based at Artsadmin in London, United Kingdom. It was officially founded in 1986 by Lloyd Newson (1986-2015), Michelle Richecoeur(1986-1988) and Nigel Charnock (1986-1989, 1992). Lloyd Newson has led the company as choreographer and artistic director since its inception, apart from the production My Sex, Our Dance (1986), which was co-created and performed with Nigel Charnock.
DV8's work is characterised by the desire to communicate ideas and feelings clearly and unpretentiously, often with a focus on socio-political issues. The work challenges the limitations of dance by using any means necessary to find the most appropriate way to say something, thereby incorporating elements of theatre, dance, film, and, increasingly, text. DV8 has toured work in the UK and to 28 countries worldwide, and received 55 national and international awards.
Lloyd Newson founded DV8 Physical Theatre in 1986 in response to his frustration with the lack of subject matter in contemporary dance. He felt audiences were being ‘conned about the depth’ of (much) contemporary dance, which he saw as generally superficial; obsessed with 'aesthetics over content'. The first work Newson produced with the new company was made in partnership with Nigel Charnock, and was titled My Sex, Our Dance (1986); it tackled the emergence of AIDS and investigated the idea of trust, both emotionally and physically, between two gay men. This was followed by Deep End (1987) and Elemen T(H)ree Sex (1987): works which focused on heterosexual relationships. All three works toured the UK, and My Sex, Our Dance and Deep End were also performed in New York as part of the Next Wave Festival (held at the Brooklyn Academy of Music) in 1988.
The next work for the company was My Body, Your Body (1987), which explored the psychology of women who seek out relationships with abusive men. It was based on an audio recording of a close female friend of Newson’s and the book, Women Who Love Too Much by Robin Norwood. The production toured the UK in 1987 and featured Wendy Houstoun, who later played the lead role in If Only… (1990) and Strange Fish (1992).
In 1988, Dead Dreams of Monochrome Men was created for the stage and, two years later, adapted for film – the first of several made by the company. The production drew inspiration from the book, Killing for Company, about serial killer Dennis Nielsen. It garnered numerous awards for DV8, including the Time Out Dance Award and the Evening Standard Ballet Award, both in 1989. In 1990, film-director David Hinton, commissioned by the South Bank Show (ITV), collaborated with Newson to adapt the stage production for television.
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