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 with a mixed race company ranging in age from 8-85. And Iets op Bach was brought back twice to the South Bank in 1998, 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."