Guy Cools

La 4e de couverture indique : "Imaginative Bodies' contains a series of in-depth conversations with dancers and choreographers, composers, visual artists, Hip Hop artists, dramaturgs, a lighting designer and a puppeteer. The overall theme is defined by the body, both in relation to the place it takes in the artist's work, and in relation to wider debates on the body in philosophy, science, medicine, anthropology, and the arts. Depending on the affinities of the artist, a more specific theme has been defined for each dialogue, ranging from poetics to politics, from mythology to ecology, from intercultural studies to conflict management. The associative chains of thoughts of these talks give an intimate insight into the creative process, inspirations, sources, identity, and ways of collaborating. It is through the sentient body that we experience, know and imagine. 'Imaginative Bodies' reaffirms the central position of the body in many artistic practices."

Dialogues in Performance Practices

Imaginative Bodies

Pascal Gielen

Karolien Byttebier

Sidi Cherkaoui

"The Ethics of Art" explores the growing ethical consciousness within the artistic community, as it relates to art's production and distribution mechanisms. It attempts to show how the artistic community engages in creative, social dialogue based upon the potential of the body. The first of this book's two sections, "Ecosophy," focuses on eco-art practices and the ways in which the ethical turn in the arts implies a greater receptivity to our environment. The second section addresses the contemporary dance scene as an example of this phenomenon, showing how it exhibits renewed interest in "caring" for one's body, rather than transgressing it, both on the individual level and on that of the larger "body politic" of cooperation and collaboration. In this volume, the singular voices of artists are as important as the scholarly contributions.

Ecological Turns in the Performing Arts

The Ethics of Art

Identity of Sidi Larbi Cherkaoiu and Akram Khan

In-Between Dance Cultures. on the Migratory Artistic

Christel Stalpaert

Hildegard De Vuyst

Introduction / Christel Stalpaert, Guy Cools and Hildegard De Vuyst -- A dramaturgy of stuttering / Guy Cools -- 'An experiment in democracy' : Alain Platel's collaborative dramaturgy / Katalin Trencsényi -- Alain wins a prize / Hildegard De Vuyst -- Being alone together : Alain Platel and the 'disturbance of violent relatedness' in La Tristeza Complice (1995), pitié! (2008) and tauberbach (2014) / Ann Cooper Albright -- Desire amongst the dodgems : Alain Platel and the scene of seduction / Adrian Kear -- Alain Platel's quest for embodied salvation : a musical perspective on C(H)ŒURS / Francis Maes -- Skin tests : views on nicht schlafen / Claire Besuelle -- Platel is a barbarian / Hildegard De Vuyst -- Bernadetje, catastrophes and gestures / Erwin Jans -- Choreic gesture : virtuosic angularity, alterkinetic dance in Platel's Out of context--for Pina / Kélina Gotman -- Staging the precarious : vulnerability and sexual identity in Alain Platel's Gardenia / Miriam Dreysse -- tauberbach, a diagrammatical reading : the body between self and language / Piet Defraeye -- Schizophrenia and resistance : on tauberbach / Jeroen Donckers -- Mourning a Europe in crisis : les Ballets C de la B's En avant, marche! (2015) / Lourdes Orozco -- Troubled pasts and presents, differential futures : Alain Platel's choreopolitics with les Ballets C de la B / Christel Stalpaert -- Offspring / Hildegard De Vuyst, Christel Stalpaert and Guy Cools.

Emotions, Gestures, Politics

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.

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

Each person?s grief is as unique as their fingerprint. But what everyone has in common is that no matter how they grieve, they share a need for their grief to be witnessed.?0David Kessler (2019)0The pandemic has once again made us more aware of the fragility of life and the importance of being able to properly mourn the dead. Dramaturg Guy Cools has been researching laments and other rituals of mourning. He is particularly interested in how the emotions of loss need to be externalized. The laments are a formal device, used in many cultures to express and contain the emotions of grief.0In a poetic, meandering, personal way Cools explores cultural habits, traditions, rituals, and artists? performances. His narrative looks into many forms of laments: literary, anthropological, philosophical, and in contemporary art practices. The latter part delves into artistic strategies to address or embody mourning: dialogical strategies that deal with personal losses; collective mourning rituals and how they invite communities to witness these losses; contemporary examples of laments that are not only used to dialogue with the dead but also to communicate with loved ones who are absent because of migration or exile; a very specific form of mourning that occurs when we grieve for the unrealized potential of a child?s unlived life, including that of an unborn child. And finally, the very recent phenomenon of lamenting not just the losses of the past, but also the loss of a future.

Guy Cools

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