Tables, chairs, couches, cupboards, a washing machine, a swing... in Belgian choreographer Alain Patel’s pieces, the stage is typically fuller than one is accustomed to from other dance performances. Whereas the stage design for Moeder en kind depicts the inside of an apartment, in Allemaal indiaan it consists of several houses, in front of, on top of and within which the action unfolds. Alain Platel tells of individuals of our present age who lead simple lives and are grappling with the everyday problems that come with trying to live together. His characters scream and whisper, dance and sing, love and fight, they long to go far away or just back to where they came from. Often, viewers don’t quite know where to focus their attention, as multiple stories are related simultaneously by a host of actors. Alain Platel’s productions are tumultuous compositions combining theatre, dance and music. His ensembles also feature a highly diverse range of participants, consisting of professionals and laypeople, grown-ups and children, and even animals; individuals with physical handicaps and illnesses also perform in his pieces. In Wolf, for instance, deaf individuals dance and move their hands to the music in sign language.
A plausible explanation for why Alain Platel approaches his work so differently can be found in the origins of his career. His tenure as a special needs teacher in a home for severely handicapped children, where his work consisted of establishing contact with these children and empathising heavily with them, served as a particularly strong early influence. One day, an older teacher suggested that he go see a ballet performance by the choreographer Maurice Béjart. Alain Platel thought the performance was dreadful, resulting in a heated discussion with his teacher. “Then do it better yourself,” the older gentleman prompted. Alain Platel took him up on the challenge. Together with his sister and friends, in his free time in the living room of a shared flat he developed a first little piece, which was promptly invited to a festival. With that first taste of recognition, Alain Platel was hooked, and continued working intensely. In 1984, at the age of 28, he founded his own dance company, Les Ballets C de la B. With his piece Bonjour Madame, he managed to break out onto the international scene in 1993.
Unlike the case for many other contemporary choreographers, classical music plays a large role in the work of Alain Platel. Purcell, Bach, Mozart, Mahler – Alain Platel approaches the staging of the inherent beauty of this music which he discovered early on as a child in an uncommon manner. For La Tristeza Complice, he invited an accordionist to interpret the music of Henry Purcell instead of having it performed by an orchestra. Played on this folk instrument, the music of “high culture” takes on an entirely different, unaccustomed sound. In Iets op Bach, dancers, children, performers and circus personnel carry out actions to the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. By contrast, in Requiem pour L., African musicians play funereal tunes alternating with Mozart’s requiem and dance to the music, while, on a screen in the background, the audience can observe a woman in the process of dying.
In his pieces, Alain Platel tells of the real world, a world full of beauty and pain. In collaboration with individuals from diverse cultures, with diverse talents or limitations – all of them equal, all with their own place in this world. A world that is as colourful on Alain Platel’s stage as it is in real life and one in which humans have a deep need for art.