De Frutos, Jump or Pushed?
The Latest News || Tuesday, 23 September, 2008
Phoenix Dance Theatre have announced that Artistic Director Javier De Frutos is leaving the company after just two years in the job.
In a statement reminiscent of a fallen politician who is leaving public life to "spend more time with his family" the company announced that Mr De Frutos was leaving "to concentrate on developing new projects".
We kind of thought that's what he was doing at Phoenix in the first place! The issued statement also said that the departure was "by mutual agreement".
You can look at that in one of two ways, let's do a little role play shall we.
Javier De Frutos: "I Quit!"The Board: "We accept!"
or
The Board: "You're Fired!"
Javier De Frutos: "Bastards! Keep your damn company!"
See, "mutual agreement" works either way. This past May Article19, by way of EvilImp, wrote a stinging feature on "Cattle Call", the company's newest production created by Mr De Frutos.
The piece decried the path the company appeared to be following into abstract musical theatre. The Imp warned that Mr De Frutos my suffer the same fate as Richard Alston when he started tinkering with the inner workings of Rambert Dance Company back in the day.
Let's just say that Mr Alston was AD of the company one day and the next day he wasn't, also by mutual agreement.
No word as yet on who will replace Mr De Frutos at the company. We would advise Hofesh Shechter not to answer his cell phone for the next few weeks!
iPod™ Video
