DV8 essay

DV8 Essay

Dv8 is a physical theatre company who have inspired groups such as Frantic Assembly. The company was created in 1986, in which they have produced 19 highly acclaimed dance pieces and four award winning films for television. They are able to get funding from Arts Council England due to the fact that they are an Arts Admine Associate Company. The company have built their huge reputation from their ability to push their own boundaries and constantly examining the role and relationships of men and women in today’s society. It means that all of their pieces are currant and relates to the modern society. DV8 focuses on taking risks, braking boundaries between dance and theatre plus communicating themes and ideas to audiences. They try to be radial yet accessible and stretch their work to as wide an audience as possible. What makes DV8 so different is that they don’t want their work to be based around financial, organisational and touring demands dictate the creation of new works but they was to focuses on artistic inspiration and creative needs. Their work constantly questions the norm of today’s society and key subjects that impude on everyday life.

When devising or creating a new production, DV8 does lengthy research and development periods in order to maintain artistic irregularity. This means that they always try to make their work different and stand out. They mainly focus on themes of questioning social, political views and sometimes taboo subjects in order to make their work have a bigger impact on their audiences. In Lloyd Newson’s piece “psychologist’s playground” they explored themes like exposing human emotions and feeling, and investigating questions of sex, identity and relationships. This piece also make Lloyd Newson to create evoking images, structured movement with a raw in your face portray of extreme behaviour.

They tend to use brutal looking, violent or provocative movements and they will try to avoid pointed feet, complex steps, high extensions, graceful arms, difficult jumps and so on. This is one reason why their work is as different as they don’t stick to the norms of dance techniques even though they are a dance physical theatre company. In another of their performances (called “My sex our dance”) some of their moves consisted of tensely clasping hands, furious tussling, twisting, crashing into walls and raped around each other to break their fall. The company believe that to reveal human emotion they often had to use very extreme movements.

One of their more taboo pieces was called “dead dreams of monochrome men”. It was based on the London serial killer Dennis Nilson. They only used minimal set designs to portray a ‘pick-up’ nightclub and a flat where the killer took his victims. They had surreal images and used body language that carried a deeper probing of homoeroticism. They used its dark sadomasochistic message to create a piece of intense and sometime uncomfortable performance all portrayed by the four male performers. This piece was so effective that in 1989 (one year after its stage release) it was filmed to enable a wider audience to see their creation.  It went on to win the awards Evening Standard Ballet Award — 1989, Time Out Dance Award — 1989, London Dance & Performance Award for choreography — 1988 and Digital Dance Production Award — 1988.

“Enter Achillies” was one of DV8’s pieces in 1995. It looked into straight male bonding in the 90’s as its theme was of a physical manifestation of the ‘new lad’ image which was being promoted in the media at that point in time. It was considered as a striking piece of popular culture as it exposed the crisis of masculinity expectations through movement, sound and design. This piece was so successful nationally and internationally that it was made into a film and it won 7 awards which were:

·    Jury Prize Montreal Festival for Films on Art 1998, Montreal
·         Emmy Award 1997, Performing Arts, New York
·         Golden Spire Performance Special, San Francisco Film Festival 1997
·         Prix du Ministre-Président First Screening Stage Arts Festival 1997, Brussells
·         Prix Italia Special Prize - Television, Music & Arts, 1996
·         Best Stage Performance Reworked for the Camera IMZ Dance Screen 1996
·         Special Prize 6th Golden Antenna Television Festival 1996

I thought that certain aspects of the piece symbolised or represented different area of the lad culture. For example when the first man entered the bar he went over to the karaoke machine and he started to sing a slow and emotional ballad. However when all the other men joined the bar, they made him stop sing by changing to a more lively song. I personally though that this represented the idea that the men weren’t allowed to show their weaker emotions as they are meant to be ‘men’ who are strong and don’t get emotional. I think it was meant to bring light on the stereotype of ‘being a man’ and how it forces men to be something that they aren’t.

Another, more disturbing, symbolism was that not female in the piece but they did have a female sex doll. In the first scene we see a man being gentle and romantic to the doll which could mean that the doll is meant to portray the loneliness of men or that the sex doll was mean to symbolise all women in the eyes of men. Later on in the piece one of the other men steal the doll and the men pretend to have sex with it and burst the doll by piercing it with a beer bottle.  It could mean that men saw woman as object rather than people and that they could do what they like with them. Or it could show how beer could destroy there relationships with women as they are drunk and have no responsibility. I think the doll was meant to question men of that time’s view on women and the way they decide to treat them due to the intoxication of alcohol.

I also noticed that whenever the men were all together they all did the same movement and they used animal and wild images. I felt that this was meant to imply that men are like animals in the way the treat each other and those men naturally copy each other in order to fit in. Therefore I think it shows the true loneliness of men and want of exception as they keep repeating the same type of movements throughout the whole piece. This addresses to the audience the wrong stereotypes of men of the 90’s and the expectations of them because they are ‘men’.