DV8

Founded in 1986, DV8 are an extremely unique and entertaining physical theatre company. The aim of the company is to essentially have a completely different approach to physical theatre and the arts in a completely new and un-thought of type of way. At this moment in time, the company have 18 critically acclaimed productions that have all toured internationally and have 4 award winning films.

The company have won many awards over the years and in 2013, Lloyd Newson received an OBE for his contributions to contemporary dance.

Their current production is called JOHN, it's a piece of verbatim dance-theatre piece by Lloyd Newson - the Artistic Director of DV8 Physical Theatre. He interviewed over 50 men about love & sex, one was consequently called John. It's currently on tour around Europe and will be broadcast to cinemas in the UK in December as part of National Theatre LIVE. 

Their use of verbatim in JOHN adds a completely different depth to their new production. As every piece of dialogue and the stories being presented are from real people's experiences and lives, it really makes you think about whats being presented. As it isn't fictional, verbatim can be quite hard hitting as you can't really comprehend some of the things people have been through which are then translated onto the stage. I feel that DV8 use this aspect in an extremely important and successful way, giving a voice to those 50 or so men's stories and experiences whilst intertwining them with physical theatre and dance.   

Past productions include; CAN WE TALK ABOUT THIS? - which dealt with speech, censorship and Islam, TO BE STRAIGHT WITH YOU -which dealt with LGBTQ issues and JUST FOR SHOW. 

In my opinion, I think companies like DV8 are extremely important - they push the boundaries in both the content they perform and how they perform them. They present hard hitting issues towards audiences in interesting and creative ways. Though they've met negativity from the press in the past - an example is; "GAY SEX ORGY ON TV!" - the shrieking headline from The Sunday Mirror after the screening of DEAD DREAMS OF MONOCHROME MEN - it doesn't hinder the company in the slightest, they continue to knock down the barriers of what is and what isn't deemed appropriate to present to an audience. Their creative way of presenting issues to audience provides the audience with a completely new aspect of looking at situations in the world and their daily lives, they cause the audience to think outside of their own box and look at things in a new light. I think this is extremely successful and effective as it not only allows the actors and performers on the stage to express themselves in different ways, but it pushes audience members in ways they may have never experienced before. The way they use all different aspects of the arts whilst intertwining it with physical theatre and multimedia is really, really effective and completely breaks down the barriers between the different art aspects. Whilst some work has been better received than others, their work is generally extremely successful both critically and artistically and I feel that they definitely deserve all the praise they receive. Their work is extremely inspiring and eye opening, their contribution to the performing arts is unparalleled within the industry.