DV8 Physical Theatre

$29.95 *

DV8's director, Lloyd Newson continues his strong commitment to film, reflecting an ongoing interest in how two primarily visual media can enhance one another and reach a crossover audience from within both forms.

The company's reputation relies on pushing its own boundaries and on the constant re-examination of the roles and relationships of men and women in our society. Its policy insists on the importance of challenging our preconceptions of what dance can and should, address.DV8's work inherently questions the traditional aesthetics and forms which pervade both modern and classical dance, and attempts to push beyond the values they reflect to enable discussion of wider and more complex issues.

DVD collection features three early film works and includes:
Enter Achilles (1995), Strange Fish (1992), Dead Dreams of Monochrome Men (1989)

Enter Achilles:
Director: Clara van Gool

A funny, cruel exploration of the male psyche, Enter Achilles is set in a typical British pub, a shabby, nicotine-stained boozer. Pop songs tumble out of the jukebox, there is football on the TV, and the eight men lark around, pint glasses in hand. But their blokish fun is balanced on a knife-edge of tension, for beneath the mateyness lurks a disturbing undercurrent of paranoia and insecurity, where weakness is brutally exploited and violence covers up vulnerability.

Strange Fish:
Director: David Hinton

As in all DV8's work, the performers in Strange Fish take astounding and humbling physical risks, and are audacious in fashioning metaphors of extreme emotion. The work concerns the nature of our quest for someone to love and something, or someone, to believe in. The tyranny of couples and groups, the pain of not belonging and the terror of being alone are all laid bare in a series of powerful images which are both pitiless and profoundly compassionate. Strange Fish is harrowing and frightening, but also contains some acutely funny moments.

Dead Dreams of Monochrome Men:
Director: David Hinton

Dead Dreams of Monochrome Men explores the grisley world of the notorious serial killer Dennis Nilsen. Founded upon the conviction that societal homophobia is bound to result in tragic consequences, it gets to grips with the disturbing forces that drove Nilson to kill for company. In the anguished twilight between the meatmarket of gay clubland and brokenhearted bedsitterland, the fine line between sex and death is all but erased. Harrowing, and bleak, the fierce physical action that has become DV8's trademark is nevertheless shaped into a forceful plea for humanity in a dehumanising world.