Alain Platel

Why We Fight? is a cinematographic film that tries to understand the violence around us, but also within ourselves, in order to better cope with the world today.

Why We Fight? is a cinematographic film that tries to understand the violence around us, but also within ourselves, in order to better cope with the world today.

C(h)oeurs, a mix of Choirs (choeurs) and Hearts (coeurs) in French, is a new musical drama set against the backdrop of contemporary international economic crisis and national protests, and the ensuing changes in society. Pursuing a reflection on the emotions felt by the individual and generated by the masses, singers from the internationally renowned Chorus of the Teatro Real perform alongside dancers of Alain Platels company les ballets C de la B in a spectacular presentation of excepts from Verdis and Wagners distinct works. Many works of Giuseppe Verdi and Richard Wagner are linked to the liberal revolutions of 1848, the ""Springtime of Peoples"", that swept away absolutism in Europe. Each musical piece blends seamlessly into the next, drawn by the actions of the individuals and groups through the expressiveness of their singing and movement.

A piece of dance theatre conceived and choreographed by Alain Platel for his company Les Ballets C de la B (Les Ballets Contemporains de la Belgique). Platel was in the process of developing the work when he learnt of the death of the German choreographer and dancer Pina Bausch and was so moved that he offered it as a posthumous gift to Pina.

Alain Platel has never shied away from confronting the audiences with an unusual universum. And his latest work, vsprs is his most outrageous yet -- one critic calling it "the weirdest, most shocking and provocative dance performance you will ever see." The dance, made up of ten dancers and ten musicians, is performed to an adaptation by Fabrizio Cassol of Claudio Monteverdi’s ‘Marian Vespers’, one of the most important works in the history of European religious music.