In Geneva, the Extatic and Poetic Mirage of Damien Jalet

Miragethe new opus by Damien Jalet and Kohei Nawa, reveals a formidable joint reflection ever so poetically explored by these two artists carrying the art of dance within limits of human perception in the face of nature forces.

Boummmm! Boummmm! Boummmm! An impressive salvo of detonations in the extreme serious of the sound register makes the walls of the Grand Théâtre de Genève and the chest of the spectators tremble. From the outset the electronic music that Thomas Bangalter has been composed for this choreographic introspection of the phenomena of nature and its effects on humans. Imposing, based on long agreements, it breathes sound authority without sinning by an excess of aggressiveness. Struck, sometimes scathing, the rhythms remain contained in a symphony of balance. Like the metallic sound of slow steps that fit perfectly between these explosions. The scene, in a deep darkness, force the blinking of the eyes to distinguish, on what seems to be a dune, a human form is slowly contorting. Illusion! Mirage! We don’t know. Soon, the shadow unfolds, begins an indistinct walk. first slow, to the rhythm of the metal steps, it suddenly accelerates to very quickly resume its slow march. Emerging from the hill, other forms enter this strange stroll with suddenly accelerated and then slowed down. Like one man, the sixteen dancers walk in rhythm in all directions, crossing without looking at each other, grouping together, separating, on the slope and the top of this dune bathed in a muddy halo. Adjusted to the cord, these first images of the ballet Mirage That Damien Jalet offers in global creation in Geneva are striking.

Continuing its artistic approach started in 2016 with Vessel that the Chaillot palace had offered in 2020 and Planet [wanderer] That this same Parisian theater had programmed in 2021, then resumed last year at the Grand Théâtre de Genève, Damien Jalet, in collaboration with Japanese scenographer Kohei Nawa, immerses himself in a universe of human adaptations to the continual metamorphoses of nature.
Exploring the elements of the earth, water and air, the approach thus presented appears of the most convincing. The obsessive wander of the initial painting is interrupted while the dancers regroup, swinging arms, in a limited circle where, heads down, they contemplate the earth which has worn their steps. While the music gradually dissolves towards silence and the scene finds black.

When the show takes up, it is the water that allows the choreographer to express what will certainly remain the most moving and the most beautiful painting of this evening. Under a conical lighting from the hangers, the dancers, seated, gathered in a circle, execute a ballets of arm and trunks of a stunning beauty. These oscillating torses, these arms with open hand open in space such as a blossoming flower, then entwined with each other in a undulation appearing the corolla of a sea anemone balanced by the swell will remain a wonderful image that we are not ready to forget. Poetry and mysticism that emerges from this scene are overwhelming. Then, gradually separating, under the effect of a thick fog flowing on the slope of what would now be a seabed, the bodies, hitherto intertwined, slowly disappear in view of the spectators.

They will soon reappear in the last part of this show, a component may be more spiritual than until then. After a (perhaps a little too long) bodies sequence of it, lasciviously two by two, the dancers, in a rain of a thousand and one glitter, continue their slow dance leaving the suggested image, thanks to the subtlety of the lighting of Yukiko Yoshimoto, major factor of this show, beetles or improbable insects. They gradually disappear to make room for a spectral figure which, alone in the center of the scene, indulges in slow arabesques of the arms while his being seems to dematerialize his soul towards the hangers in a thread of ascending light. Then, in apotheosis, slowly, each dancer places herself behind his colleague to build a terrifying human-human millente, mirage of a waking nightmare, before a thick red and golden cloud covers the scene in dying music, and a twilight of light comes to close the spectacle. If the impression that previous shows have been able to leave the physical performance of the dancers does not appear so obvious here, it should be noted that the balance of the dancers moving on the curves of this dune-colline is certainly not easy

Long seconds take place before the public, moved, reserves a triumph for this show where the beauty of gestures disputes it to that of the incredible technical means used to paint these living paintings. Undoubtedly, Damien Jalet and Kohei Nawa sign here a masterful work of aesthetic beauty, spiritual depth and acerbic mysticism, of an artistic level of very great outfit.

Photographic credit: © Rahi Revzani and © Gregory Batardon/GTG

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