The Making of Doubt

Puppets and prostheses

In The Making of Doubt, the Scottish choreographer Colette Sadler puts four dancers and several puppets and prostheses on stage. She uses them to play a clever and witty game with reality, fiction and manipulation. How much authenticity do we need to believe in the fake? ‘The physical transformation of dancers by means of their costumes raises associations with the Triadisches Ballett by the Bauhaus exponent Oskar Schlemmer’ (8Weekly.nl).

Colette Sadler (Glasgow, 1974) trained in classical ballet and studied at the Laban Centre in London, and also in New York and Ottawa. She has worked with numerous choreographers, including Amanda Miller and Vicente Seaz. In 2002 she set up her own production company called Stammer Productions.

Press quotes:

'Very convincing was the The Making of Doubt by the Scottish choreographer Colette Sadler… With a lot of visual jokes and comments on the profession Sadler unites the best of tradition with the best of contemporary trends'
- Ingrid van Frankenhuyzen, NRC Handelsblad

'It totally disrupts commonplace notions of what dance is, or indeed aesthetic values… a brilliant provocation'
- Mary Brennan, The Glasgow Herald

’In Sadler's work we see dancing bodies that search freedom, while being funny, stretching the borders of the art form called dance.’
- Monique Jacobs, www.springdance.nl

‘De fysieke transformatie van dansers door middel van kostuums roept associaties op met het Triadisches Ballett van Bauhaus exponent Oskar Schlemmer. Naast de poppen maken de dansers ook gebruik van een aantal neparmen en -benen: levensechte protheses die ze aan hun lijf binden, waardoor er surrealistische, geestige momenten ontstaan. Juist het expliciet tonen van het vastbinden en weer verwijderen van deze protheses toont de maakbaarheid van de theatrale illusie en roept zo vragen op over wat echt en wat verbeelding is.’
- Daniël Bertina, www.8Weekly.nl