Philippe Decouflé

Dancer, choreographer. Born in Paris, 22 October 1961.

After training in circus, mime and contemporary dance, Philippe Decouflé founded the company DCA in 1983. Drawing on influences as varied as Oskar Schlemmer and his Triadic Ballet, Tex Avery, Alwin Nikolaïs and Groucho Marx, he developed a hybrid signature style combining movement, theatrical machinery and the magic of cinema. He created works such as Codex, Triton and Shazam!, while also directing large-scale popular events including the opening ceremonies of the Albertville Winter Olympics (1992), the 50th Cannes Film Festival (1997), and La Mêlée des mondes for the Rugby World Cup (2007).

In 2006, he presented L’Autre défilé at La Villette, showcasing the extravagant costumes of the Paris Opéra and the Comédie-Française. Following Désirs, a reinterpretation of the Crazy Horse revue first presented in 2009 and still running, Philippe Decouflé created Octopus in 2010. In 2011, he accepted an invitation from Cirque du Soleil to create Iris, a permanent show on the theme of cinema, at the Kodak Theater in Los Angeles. For Panorama, created in 2012, he revisited his entire body of work with Compagnie DCA, from Vague Café (1983) to Sombrero (2006). That same year saw the creation of Opticon, an exhibition of playful and interactive installations exploring the world of optics.

In 2014, he created Contact, a musical and visual comedy for sixteen dancers, actors, singers and musicians. In 2015, Philippe Decouflé created Wiebo, a concert-performance in homage to David Bowie, commissioned by the Philharmonie de Paris alongside the landmark exhibition Bowie is… In 2016, he responded to a new commission from Cirque du Soleil, creating a Broadway musical for 38 performers entitled Paramour, presented at the Lyric Theater — making him the first French director to present a show on 42nd Street.

After a brief return to France for Courtepointe, a series of performances presented at the Théâtre National de Bretagne, he travelled to Japan for a new musical, Watashi wa Shingo, an adaptation of the manga of the same name. 2017 saw the creation of Nouvelles Pièces Courtes. In 2019, one of the tableaux from this work was brought to the screen under the title Vivaldis, a short film shot in nature. That same year, Tout doit disparaître, an event bringing together 40 artists from the company and tracing 35 years of creation, was presented at Chaillot.

Shazam was revived in 2021 with some of the performers from the 1998 version alongside others who have collaborated more recently with Compagnie DCA. In 2022, Philippe Decouflé created Stéréo, a new rock-energy piece for 5 dancers and 3 musicians.

As a child, I dreamt of becoming a comic strip artist. Drawing is  usually the start of my creative process. I just throw out ideas and  sketch out pictures that pass through my head. My culture is comics,  musicals, nightclub dancing, and also Oskar Schlemmer, the Bauhaus  choreographer. Discovering photos of characters from his Triadisches  Ballett was a revelation for me. I had always wanted to work with simple  geometric shapes like cubes and triangles. I liked seeing how these  lines and volumes behaved with each other. Alwin Nikolaïs taught me the  importance of light and costume, and the confidence you need to mix  everything together. Technically, it was Merce Cunningham who taught me  the most about dance. I was taking video courses he was giving in New  York. It was fascinating. That’s where I learned how to solve problems  of distance and geometry, and the basic principles of optics and  movement. Tex Avery inspired me a lot in thinking up gestures that are  almost impossible to do. I’ve always kept something of that desire to  create something strange, extreme or crazy in my movements. I’m looking  for a dance style that’s off-balance, always on the verge of toppling  over. With influences like the Marx Brothers, for example, and in  particular Groucho Marx, I’ve developed a taste for naughty risk-taking,  and comic repetition of mistakes.»

Source : Philippe Découflé

More information : cie-dca.com