Nigel Charnock Has Passed Away
British dancer and choreographer Nigel Charnock - best known as a founder member of the dance company DV8 – has died in London at the age of 52.
An acknowledged maverick of dance, Charnock trained at the London School of Contemporary Dance. Beginning his performing career in Ludus and Extemporary Dance Theatre, in 1986 Nigel co-founded the DV8 physical theatre with Lloyd Newson and left six years later when the company was gaining national acclaim. "DV8 was really getting successful with massive sets, but I kept feeling smaller and smaller and part of a huge organisation." He then moved on to form his own company – Nigel Charnock + Company in 1995, from 2002 to 2005 he was Artistic Director of Helsinki Dance Company.
Charnock was responsible for an extraordinary body of work that was grounded in improvisation and frequently autobiographical, with a streak of black comedy. He worked on the fringes of the mainstream, often creating challenging pieces that dealt with his homosexuality and ruptured the boundaries of performance using different disciplines and media to redefine dance as a genre. His joyful, humorous, uncompromising, all-singing-and-dancing, professional working attitude has influenced and changed the lives of artists and performers across the world.
Described in The Independent as "body poet and word dancer… a virtuoso in daring", Nigel was midway in the development of one of his most ambitious projects to date for his own company. A short section of this evening of work entitled 10 Men was previewed, to unanimous acclaim, at British Dance Edition and Duckie earlier this year. Nigel is internationally acclaimed for a string of unique solo performances which include Human Being, Hell Bent, Original Sin, Resurrection, Frank and most recently One Dixon Road. Renowned for his inspirational teaching and mentoring, Nigel worked regularly and relentlessly with dance centres and independent artists throughout Europe, Israel and Canada, undertaking many choreographic commissions. In recent years he created new work for Louise Lecavalier (Canada), Candoco Dance Company, Ludus and National Dance Company of Wales (UK) as well as ongoing collaborations with jazz musicians Michael Riessler and Gwilym Simcock. Czech audiences may remember his piece Love Me/Miluj mě, created in collaboration with company NANOHACH in 2008, still in the company’s repertoire.
His most recent work included Stupid Men, an improvisation and performance project for four men, which he directed; and One Dixon Road, a solo show based on Nigel's childhood, family and his first inspirations to dance.
Source: www.bbc.co.uk, http:nigelcharnock.co.uk
Josef Bartos
Thank you for your thoughts. One got stuck in my mind – that passion makes us different from AI. Just yesterday I read…I am a dance critic. I am a member of an endangered species