Fourteen worldwide musicians and a stage device that brings out the corporeal equilibrium of the dancers; Alain Platel and Fabrizio Cassol reconstruct Mozart’s unfinished work. Cross-pollinated, shot through with jazz, African popular music and chants, their creation is enriched with complexity by these varieties of sound. In a set depicting monoliths inspired by the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin, the musicians, joyful, almost possessed, celebrate the breath of life which accompanies the images of that woman whom we see slowly glide to the opposite shore.

Alain Platel and Fabrizio Cassol are back together after Coup fatal which was celebrated for its fresh reinterpretation of the Baroque canon. With Requiem for L, a modern and universal mass, they confront the possibilities, ask the final question and invent new rites of passage.

Learn more about les Ballets C de la B.

Office Hours: Coming Soon

Indefinite Article

Andy Teirstein on Les Ballets C de la B

There is an alchemy to the art of cultural mixture. Musicians have always reached across borders, inspired by the infusion

Get Into It

Get Thee to the LIbrary

Recommended readings to accompany the Indefinite Article by Andy Teirstein.

Ann Cooper Albright, Choreographing Difference: The Body and Identity in Contemporary Dance. Wesleyan University Press, 2010.

Ric Allsopp (ed.), Performance Research: Letters from Europe. Routledge, 2017.

Pina Bausch and Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker, Alain Platel. Dis Voir, 2003.

Guy Cools, Imaginative Bodies: Dialogues in Performance Practices. Antennae, 2017.

Christel Stalpaert, Guy Cools, Hildegard De Vuyst (eds.), The Choreopolitics of Alain Platel’s Les Ballets C de la B: Emotions, Gestures, Politics. Methuen Drama, 2020.

Read All About It

Tejas Rawal for London Dance | June 27, 2017

Interview: Alain Platel

“There’s not a dramaturgical linear line in my work, I’m jumping from one atmosphere to another.”

Borisav Matić for N|KRITIKA | Oct 9, 2018

Interview: Fabrizio Cassol

“And what is Mozart? Mozart is polyphony.”

Tomasz Kireńczuk for Dialog – Wrocław | Sept 10, 2017

Interview: Alain Platel

“For 25 years I’ve been working with people of different origins and we have had to mix languages all the time. I’m really annoyed about the fact that, especially in Europe, we constantly emphasise the fact that if somebody wants to integrate, they have to know the language.”

Extra Credit

We’ve picked a book to complement each show in our season. We’ve got novels, short stories, essays, poetry, and memoir. Before opening night of each show (usually Fridays, but not always!), we’ll meet in the lobby for happy hour drinks and discussion. It’s an fun, informal way to find a new favorite book, meet people, and get your brain into gear for the show – even if you haven’t had a chance to read the book yet.

NYU Skirball Book Club | Friday, May 1, 2020

How We Fight for Our Lives by Saeed Jones

Haunted and haunting — a coming-of-age memoir. Jones tells the story of a young, black, gay man from the South as he fights to carve out a place for himself, within his family, within his country, within his own hopes, desires, and fears.