The choreographer with the art
The title says it all, but to expand: the work itself is called
TeZukA and it's been choreographed by
Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, who's an Associate Artist at Sadlers Well. I assume he's an artiste, rather than an artist in the strict sense of the word, as he's said to have taken inspiration from manga artist and animator
Osamu Tezuka for this work.
Mr. Tezuka is a visionary when it comes to this genre, if you've not heard of him before he's the man we have to thank for
Astro Boy.
Ah! It's starting to mean something to you now isn't it! He's also the creator of
Kimba the White Lion and
Buddha. And Cherkaoui draws on his imagery for this work, as well as to his narratives and themes which are a mash up of science fiction and tradition met with the here and now.
Naturally for a concept this visual there are going to be cool costumes and sets – based on Tezuka's designs of course. There's also a totally new score by
Nitin Sawhney - I'm still hoping for moments of the
Astro Boy song - a multimedia projection based backdrop and live calligraphy. So no facet of this creative process remains unexplored.
It might sound a bit gimmicky, but the idea of dancers moving the way Tezuka's creations do is pretty unusual and is probably going to be really interesting. It couldn't really not be with all that promises to be going on.
