CAN WE TALK ABOUT THIS?

Make sure you are there to hear and see it. It is a rare experience.

- JILL SYKES, SYDNEY MORNING HERALD (25/08/2011)

Multicultural policies, freedom of speech and censorship. These are some of the concerns that director and choreographer Lloyd Newson addresses in Can We Talk About This?, the latest production from the DV8 Physical Theatre. Using extraordinary strength and a flawless technique, the actor-dancers bounce off, roll towards, press against and step around each other, but no one is looking each other in the eye. Newson puts forward strong views on the contradictions of integrating Islam into western culture in a controversial production full of pressing issues with which DV8 crosses the boundaries of dance, sound and documentary drama, refusing to mince words on the issue of multiculturalism.

Described as "Newson's latest and most potent provocation" by The Australian newspaper and as "one of the most important works of our age" according to Time Out Australia, Can We Talk About This? has been publicly and critically-acclaimed following its world premiere in Sydney last year and its subsequent international tour to countries such as China, France, Italy, Austria, Germany and the United Kingdom.

Newson has assembled his dialogue from declarations taken from real interviews and research carried out by the company with celebrated figures from across the religious, political, cultural and social spectrum, including members of parliament, well-known and respected writers and journalists as well as anyone with anything of value to say regarding multiculturalism, taking as a starting point the situation in Great Britain and the rest of Europe. Can We Talk About This? maps a path through the burning of Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses, the murder of filmmaker Theo van Gogh and the controversy generated by the cartoons of Muhammad which appeared in a Danish newspaper in 2005 to highlight how these events have had a huge influence on multicultural policies, artistic censorship and press freedom with sometimes ambiguous results that are socially accepted in the name of a misunderstood multiculturalism. And as Time Out Australia points out, Newson's production is ultimately no more than "an invitation to discussion and a firm reminder of its necessity."

www.dv8.co.uk