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Contemporary dance. Richard Alston, Artistic Director of The Place, the UK's leading centre for contemporary dance, is internationally recognised as one of the most influential and inspiring choreographers in British dance. The music is Britten's masterpiece of the same name and both music and dance paint a vivid picture of the wild young genius Arthur Rimbaud, whose absinthe and drug-fuelled youth erupted in a brutally intense love affair with the older poet Paul Verlaine. Illuminations depicts images from the turbulent life of the young poet, a genius and a misfit in equal part. He saw himself as a visionary who needed to be outside the normality of respectable society. "I alone", he cried, "hold the key to this wild parade.