Patten Performances: Diavolo

×

Expand

Diavolo

Continuing its presentation of America’s top dance companies, the Patten Performances bring the uniquely theatrical Diavolo to Chattanooga for the first time ever this season.

Diavolo was founded in 1992 in Los Angeles by Jacques Heim to create large-scale interdisciplinary performances which examine the funny and frightening ways individuals act with their environment. Constantly changing the image presented to the audience, Diavolo has developed a movement vocabulary that creates an almost cinematic experience of powerful images that develop abstract narratives of the human condition and is at the same time crafty and witty.

The company’s dancers, gymnasts and actors create performances collaboratively under the guidance of Heim. Their outrageous and surrealistic sets form an intrinsic part of each piece of work. Everyday items such as doors, chairs and stairways provide the back-drop for dramatic movement – leaping, flying, twirling – that creates metaphors for the challenge of relationships, the absurdities of life and the struggle to maintain our humanity in an increasingly technological world.

Diavolo has attracted the critics’ attention from the very beginning. Los Angeles Times dance critic Lewis Segal calls Heim "someone with both a compelling vision and the ability to inspire others to uncompromising performances." Having won numerous Lester Horton Awards in Los Angeles over the years, Diavolo was named Best of the Fest by The London Independent and Critic’s Choice by The Guardian following its mid-1990s European debut at the Edinburgh Festival.

Join us for an evening of inspired dance from one of America’s most unique dance companies.