About the artists

Production still from Alain Platel's vsprs, 2006. Photograph by Giannina Urmeneta Ottiker

Previous image Alain Platel, photograph by Ellen Goovaerts

Alain Platel trained as a remedial educationalist, and is an autodidact choreographer and director. He is best known for his pioneering work with the internationally acclaimed Belgium companies Les Ballets C de La B and Victoria (now Campo). Bernadetje was presented by Artangel in 1997 on a dodgem track at the Roundhouse and Iets op Bach - brought back twice to the South Bank Centre in 1998 - was a dark and joyous urban epic featuring a trio of opera singers and a disparate group of social outcasts.

"So what does Platel stand for?" asks the Les Ballets C de la B website. "There is no unequivocal answer. His world is not neatly divided into sheep and wolves, a man is also a woman, and nothing can ever be only beautiful. It is never either/or."

Arne Sierens is a playwright and director working in avant garde theatre. Productions, mainly in Ghent dialect, result from months of research and integrate both music and dance. Sierens often produces his own set design; bumper cars in Bernadetje, an ice rink in Maria Eeuwigdurende Bijstand and a blue circus ring in Trouwfeesten en processen enzovoorts.