The Choreopolitics of Alain Platel's les ballets C de la B

Les Ballets C de la B was founded by Alain Platel in 1984. Since then it has become a company that enjoys great success at home and abroad. Over the years, Platel has developed a unique choreographic oeuvre. His motto, 'This dance is for the world and the world is for everyone', reveals a deep social and political commitment.
Through the three topics of emotions, gestures and politics, this book unravels the choreopolitics of Platel's Les Ballets C de la B. His choreopolitics go beyond conveying a (political) message because rather than defending one opinion, Platel is more concerned about the exposure of the complexity within the debate itself.
Highly respected scholars from different fields contribute to this book to provide an interdisciplinary perspective on the intense emotions, the damaged narratives, and the precarious bodies in Platel's choreographic oeuvre.

Christel Stalpaert is Full Professor Theatre, Performance and Media Studies at Ghent University, Belgium where she is Director of the research centres S:PAM (Studies in Performing Arts and Media) and PEPPER (Philosophy, Ethology, Politics and Performance).
Guy Cools is a dance dramaturg at Ghent University, Belgium. His focus is production dramaturgy, contributing to work by choreographers all over Europe and Canada.
Hildegard De Vuyst is Dramaturg of Les Ballets C de la B, Belgium, where she has worked since 1994.

Introduction: The Choreographic Work of Alain Platel in Context (Christel Stalpaert, Ghent University, Belgium; Guy Cools, Ghent University, Belgium; and Hildegard De Vuyst, Les Ballets C de la B, Belgium)
1. Collaborative Dramaturgy: An Experiment in Democracy (Katalin Trencsenyi, Freelance Dramaturg, UK)
Part I: Emotions
2. Alain Platel is a Barbarian: Perceiving Emotions as Forms of Intelligent Awareness (Hildegard De Vuyst, Les Ballets C de la B, Belgium)
3. Desire amongst the Dodgems: The Scene of Seduction (Adrian Kear, Aberystwyth University, UK)
4. Platel's Quest for Embodied Salvation: A Musical Perspective on Choeurs (Francis Maes, Ghent University, Belgium)
5. Poetics of Fight in Nicht Schlafen (Claire Besuelle, École Doctorale Sciences de l'homme et de la Société, France)
Part II: Gestures
6. How to Witness the Hyper-Sensitive Through the Virtuosic: "I Have Never Seen Anybody Who Can Participate So Intensely While Standing Aside" (Guy Cools, Ghent University, Belgium)
7. Choreic Gesture: Virtuosic Angularity and Alterkinetic Dance in Platel's Out of Context: For Pina (2010) (Kélina Gotman, King's College, London, UK)
8. Being Alone Together: The 'Disturbance of Violent Relatedness' in La Tristeza Complice, Pitié and Tauberbach (Ann Cooper Albright, Oberlin College and Conservatory, USA)
9. Staging the Precarious: Vulnerability and Sexual Identity in Gardenia (Miriam Dreysse, Universität Hildesheim, Germany)
10. Schizophrenia and Resistance: On Tauberbach (Jeroen Donckers, Independent Psychotherapist, Belgium)
Part III: Politics
11. Catastrophe as Political Gesture: On Gestus and Hieroglyphs in Bernadetje (Erwin Jans, Dramaturg, Toneelhuis, Belgium)
12. Tauberbach: A Diagrammatical Reading (Piet Defraeye, University of Alberta, Canada)
13. Mourning a Europe in Crisis: En Avant, Marche! (Lourdes Orozco, University of Leeds, UK)
14. Troubled Pasts, Differential Futures: Platel's Choreopolitics with Les Ballets C de la B (Christel Stalpaert, Ghent University, Belgium)
Conclusion: A Genealogical Perspective on Les Ballets C de la B's Influences and Offspring (Christel Stalpaert, Ghent University, Belgium; Guy Cools, Ghent University, Belgium; and Hildegard De Vuyst, Les Ballets C de la B, Belgium)
Bibliography
Index