Enquiries:
083 558 7380
email: [email protected]
His web site
Francois le Roux has for a number of years been
exploring the art of spontaneous music-making,
travelling independently through South Africa. Now
based in Grahamstown, he employs the sounds of a
synthesizer by recording layered improvised tracks, as
in this production. He has recorded piano, cello,
organ and electronic music on CD, including a CD with
cello accompanied by synthesizer. All these musics
were created spontaneously.
Acty's comments...
Francois works with improvisation in performance.
Improvisation does not setting a rigid form, repeated over and over again so that it dies a slow death.
Improvisation lends itself to live performances, involving the audience. In previous concerts Francois directed the audience to make sounds to complement the organ.
Improvisation is not lawlessness. Francois has certain organic principles to which he works.
For instance, in the score he made for this danceplay, you will hear fine control of rhythm and tune alongside freedom from rigid time-keeping and melodic structures.
The score is simple, in parts minimalist, almost weightless. Eastern musical sounds combine with his experimental sensitivity. The result ranges from meditative stillness to provocative, jarring sounds.
...Acty
His is not so much a dancing body as an encapsulation of forces that drive a person to move.
Movement is more than locomotion. When you step a foot on the ground, there is a transferrance of weight into the ground. And possibly also a transferrance of relish, or hesitancy, or primal fear.
And behind those are the forces (physical, psychic or mystical) that drive every movement. If motion is connected to these forces, the performer will not be robotic.
Acty's movement does not try to conform to a dance standard. The point is to let movement come alive by connecting it to its source. Even if it's just lifting an arm, let it not be a pose, but breathing.
Acty was trained at the Drama Department of Rhodes University. His first appeared in a professional work with First Physical in Durban, at the Jomba! Contemporary Dance Experience in 1999. In 2000 he toured nationally with the company in Bessie's Head. He stages original, innovative dance work at the FNB Vita Dance Umdudo: in 1999 performing in two works, his own work, Your Proximity, being a personal take on butoh. In 2000 his The warmth I feel met with excellent responses, and became the origin of and the empty space of his shadow.
...Lisa
Lisa Cagnacci is a director, performer and stage manager currently studying at Brandeis University in Massachusetts, USA. Past directing credits include David Mamet's The Woods and Harold Pinter's The Hothouse. Most recently she appeared in Man of La Mancha and directed staged readings of They Named Us Mary and Pop Psychology by Boston area playwright
Kelley Conway.
...Gary
Gary Gordon, artistic director of the First Physical Theatre Company, Professor and head of department at the Rhodes University Drama Department. Received and has been nominated for numerous awards; international teaching, choreographing and performing experience. See his biography on First Physical's web site.
