Lloyd Newson

Lloyd Newson’s work since 1986 as the Director of DV8 Physical Theatre has had a dynamic impact on contemporary dance and theatre.

His stage and film work with DV8 has consistently received major awards. His recent film, “The Cost of Living”, won a Prix Italia and a Rose D’or.

Born in Australia, Newson’s interest in dance arose while studying psychology and social work at Melbourne University, a fascination that led to a full scholarship at London Contemporary Dance School.

He danced and/or choreographed with many companies — including Modern Dance Ensemble, Impulse Dance Theatre/New Zealand Ballet Company, One Extra Dance Theatre and Extemporary Dance Theatre — before forming his own company.

From the beginning Newson believed that his work, because of its narrative underpinnings, would translate well onto film. Consequently filmmakers David Hinton and Clara von Gool translated three of DV8’s stage works into film with Newson directing DV8’s last film, “The Cost of Living” (2004/05), himself. This work has subsequently won 17 international awards.

Straddling dance, text, theatre and film, Newson work’s refuses to be defined. He is interested in conceiving original work rather than performing existing plays or reinterpreting classical ballets. More recently he has started exploring verbatim theatre, looking at the relationship between text (drawn from interviews) and movement. Whilst this is not his first foray into verbatim theatre (“MSM” 1993), his most recent two works, “To Be Straight With You” (2008/2009) and “Can We Talk About This” (2011/2012) are more text-based than any other work he has created.

Source: DV8 Physical Theatre ‘s website

More information: dv8.co.uk