DOWNTIME - interviews with dance artists & arts leaders, talking about dance & the arts Lou Cope - Dramaturg

Lloyd Newson OBE is a director, dancer and choreographer. He formed DV8 Physical Theatre in 1986, and the company went on to tour across the world for decades, winning 55 national and international awards including the Prix Italia, Rose d'Or and an International Emmy Award.Shows include:, the hard hitting, physically combative, politically charged My Sex; Our Dance, Dead Dreams of Monochrome Men; poetic pieces with more of a sense of narrative and/or design - Strange Fish, Enter Achille...

Lou talked with Italian choreographer and performer Silvia Gibraudi, sometimes referred to as ‘the prophet of the free body’, in December 2022.Silvia talked about her journey of trying to find joy and grace, and bring them to people’s lives, to theatres and to people in the street. She explained how her show Graces explores questions like ‘what is beauty?’ and ‘what does it mean to be perfect?’ in a playful, pleasurable but political way, by placing Silvia, her clown-like character and h...

Lou talked with Movement Directors Ayse Tashkiran and Ingrid Mackinnon about how they approach the key relationships at the heart of their work - namely directors, individual and groups of actors and other collaborators; how they try to identify and develop the ‘feeling’ or ‘colour’ of a production and how they move between leading and observing.They also shared their thoughts on how to ask for time to do the work they need to do, the practicalities that surround how often they are in the spa...

Lou spoke to Julia in November 2022. They talked about how her journey and values underpin everything she does; how important it is for her to be part of a movement that advocates for the representation of people like her; how House of Absolute work as a collective, and how she approached the role of choreographer of Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club. Julia also spoke of how, in her early days of parenthood, she is trying to have conversations she might find uncomfortable, and approach them wi...

Hello and welcome to a rather unusual one-off episode of Downtime.Lou has absolutely loved talking to all her brilliant guests about how they approach their work. But a while ago it was suggested that maybe she make a mini- episode that focuses on her work, her personal approach to dramaturgy and also CoAD - The Centre of Applied Dramaturgy - and the courses and bursaries she’s developing. And who better to ask to hold that conversation than veteran dance critic and writer, Sanjoy Roy.&n...

Damien and Lou spoke in mid October 2022. They talked about the interest in ritual that has informed all of his work; his collaborations with visual artists to make the pieces Thr(o)ugh, Vessel and Skid; the impact that being caught in the centre of the 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris has had on the content of his work; and what it is he is enjoying about working in film.