March 02, 2007 -

OTTAWA -- He may be the only dancer onstage, but France’s renaissance man of dance, Philippe Decouflé, is never alone in this theatrical, multimedia work, as video projections, light, and shadows create a kaleidoscope of stunning visual images. Decouflé performs the spectacular Solo – le doute m’habite (the doubt within me) in the Theatre of the National Arts Centre on Wednesday, March 14, 2007 at 19:30. Decoufle’s choreography was last seen at the NAC when Lyon Opéra Ballet performed the inventive Tricodex to a sold-out house in April 2004.

FREE POST-SHOW CHAT WITH PHILIPPE DECOUFLÉ ON MARCH 14

Internationally renowned for his beautifully witty and imaginative work, dancer-choreographer Philippe Decouflé has often worked on an extravagant scale (for example, staging the opening/closing ceremonies at the 1992 Winter Olympics in Albertville, France). His new show, Solo, blends his skills as a dancer, illusionist, clown, and filmmaker in a work of effervescent playfulness, intimacy, and charm. Lacing together dance, theatre, and video, he uses technology to conjure up a performance steeped in illusion, and inventiveness. A phantasmagoria of flamboyant theatricality, Solo allows Decouflé to interact with his own digital doppelganger, achieving a Busby Berkeley-inspired choreographic complexity. A puppeteer pulling invisible strings, Decouflé is a chameleon, merging perfectly into his video environment.

After twenty years of ensemble work, Philippe Decouflé rises to an irresistible challenge: to talk to the audience, to show photos of his parents and daughters – to play himself. Using a sophisticated array of screens and cameras to create a high-tech hall of mirrors, Decouflé’s Solo (created in 2003 to celebrate 20 years of DCA, Decouflé's company) plays with images and shadows, producing an infinite number of patterns and reflections of himself. He escapes the ordinary world by creating a universe as excessive as his imagination. Philippe Decouflé reveals to us the essence of his artistic obsessions: how to contemplate one object from several angles simultaneously, how to tell a story in detail and as a panorama, and how to transform the body into an abstract kaleidoscope of forms.

“What differentiates me from other choreographers is possibly my sense of the overall show, because I'm not working to further contemporary dance, but to entertain people. I'm merely a saltimbanque and all I care about is that the public enjoys itself! I'm just fulfilling my dreams and making them come alive. It's just lucky that so many others share my fantasies.”

Philippe Decouflé

“Philippe Decouflé's Solo was surely the most magical work in this year's Dance Umbrella. [he] mesmerised the audience with increasingly complex and fragmentary processes, building up his richly bizarre, if largely two-dimensional, imaginary world … this performance will surely live on for those of us lucky enough to see it, indelibly fixed in our memories. Magic.”

Ramsay Burt, Ballet~Dance magazine, October 2004

“Decouflé is fascinated by the detailed construction of the human frame, but he also loves the poetry of human movement, the profound statement that is more than the sum of its bones and muscles.”

Debra Craine, The Times, London

Philippe Decouflé is the inventive artistic director of Compagnie DCA. Decouflé initially wanted to be a clown, but ended up as a dancer, with Alwin Nicolaïs (CNDC in Angers), Régine Chopinot (Grand Écart, Swim One, Délices) and Karole Armitage (Parafango), while at the same time working on his own dance and cinema projects. He effortlessly merges dance, live video, film, music, and cartoons in his whimsical creations, which blur the boundaries between virtual and corporeal. Decouflé’s Shazam performed by Compagnie DCA was part of the France Moves festival in New York in 2001, the The New York Times calling Decouflé a “mixed media wizard. After mastering large spaces and presenting to the public fabulous festivals of movement, colour, costume and music, he is more concerned these days with the art of the image, creating a new intimate/poetic theatre for the body, at the interface of image and reality, screen and reflection, appearance and illusion.

Solo – le doute m’habite (2003)
ARTISTIC DIRECTION, PERFORMER Philippe Decouflé
MUSIC Joachim Latarjet
VIDEO Olivier Simola
LIGHTING Patrice Besombes
SOUND Claire Thiébault

Philippe Decouflé gratefully acknowledges the assistance of the Embassy of France in Canada and CULTURESFRANCE

Philippe Decouflé performs Solo – le doute m’habite in the Theatre of the National Arts Centre on Wednesday, March 14, 2007 at 19:30. Tickets are $44.50, $42, and $32.50 for adults and $23.50, $22.25, and $17.50 for students (upon presentation of a valid student ID card). Tickets are available at the NAC Box Office (in person) and through Ticketmaster (with surcharges) at (613) 755-1111; Ticketmaster may also be accessed through the NAC’s website at www.nac-cna.ca. Same-day Live Rush tickets (subject to availability) for full-time students (aged 13-29) are $10 at the NAC Box Office between 14:00 and 18:00 on the day of performance only, upon presentation of a valid ‘Live Rush’ card. Groups of 10 or more save 15% to 20% off regular ticket prices to all NAC Music, Theatre and Dance performances; to reserve your seats, call 947-7000 ext. 384 or e-mail grp@nac-cna.ca.

New! Dinner packages at Kinki, Social, and Meditheo are available with the purchase of tickets to any NAC Dance performance. Book your package by visiting Ticketmaster at one of the following links: http://www.ticketmaster.ca/promo/24375, http://www.ticketmaster.ca/promo/24364, or http://www.ticketmaster.ca/promo/b5kfde

Photos for all dance events can be viewed and downloaded at: www.nac-cna.ca/media/

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Information:
Gerald Morris
M arketing and Media Relations,
NAC Dance Department
(613) 947-7000, ext. 249
gmorris@nac-cna.ca