Alain Platel
A special needs teacher by training, Alain Platel reveals the beauty of the body, especially when it seems warped, old, damaged; in them he finds the forms of an ever-changing expression. Whether his art should be called a form of theatrical dance or a brand of theatre uniquely embodied, it focuses on humans that are always moving, testing their limits, their potentialities, and their abilities just to exist together. It is this communal pleasure that gives their energy to the Ballets C de la B, a collective that looks more like a constantly evolving family and of which Alain Patel has probably been the pillar since the creation, in 1984, of Stabat Mater, based on Alessandro Scarlatti. Baroque music, then, was already the common thread of a body of work characterised by its generosity, preoccupied by all forms of poverty and suffering, and to which it responds with joy and dignity.
RB, April 2014
