For the first time, the young prodigy of French contemporary dance created in Avignon (read October 8 edition and the online version). Critical success and public success under his belt, he had to rethink his play to bring it to life as closely as possible to his intention in a T900 du Quai with a very different configuration from the Italian-style theater space in Avignon. So play, among other things, on the dizzying depth of the stage: the final scenes where the dance takes shape as far as the eye can see symbolize the aesthetic and arithmetic mastery of this new apprehension of space.
On the garden side, the il Convito ensemble composed of Maude Gratton on harpsichord and conducting, Amélie Michel (traverso), Claire Gratton (viola da gamba), Ageet Zweistra (cello) and Simon Pierre (violin) for pieces belonging to “ The Art of Fugue” and “Andante”, taken from “Sonata No. 2 for solo violin” by Johann Sebastian Bach. Or a music which brings to its acme the contrapuntal writing which superimposes several melodic lines obviously requiring extreme rigor, a solid virtuosity but which from which, and this is the genius of these staves, emerges a freedom, a breath carrier.
All impressive in physicality and expressiveness
Noé Soulier’s choreographic writing is exactly at this point of friction between extreme rigor and extreme freedom which here takes the form of a diversion: the tasks of throwing, avoiding, catching, hitting… are here displaced by the danced gesture and the dancing body. Hence this impression of seeing dancers both hindered and totally emancipated. This is above all due to their alternately contained and fleeting energy. Julie Charbonnier, Nangaline Gomis, Yumiko Funaya, Samuel Planas, Mélisande Tonolo and Gal Zusmanovich are all impressive in their physicality and expressiveness. We evoked the musical breath: it is taken up here in strong breaths by the dancers and the dancer chanting their movements.
So beautiful, classy, powerful, this “close-up” which is presented concretely in the second part, with supporting video? Body parts appear on the big screen, dividing the viewer’s gaze between real dance and imagined dance. Alas, we have this slight impression of witnessing an advertisement for jeans from the era of diversity in brand communication. This somewhat disrupts a painting of otherwise remarkable igneous delicacy.
