the essential
Noted solo a year ago with “3D”, Ariège tightrope walker Jonathan Guichard returns next week in a duo with dancer Lauren Bolze. Meeting at L’Estive, where the two artists in residence are refining their new show, “Thaumazein”.
In the fall of 2023, Jonathan Guichard performed in Ariège, his adopted department for three years, on a strange seesaw made of a board held curved by a thin crossbar. A year later, here he is back in residence at L’Estive, this time with the dancer Lauren Bolze and on a 6 meter diameter top, to prepare the next show of their HMG company, “Thaumazein”, which the public Ariégeois will be the first to discover on November 14 and 15. Interview.
A seesaw in “3D”, a giant spinning top in “Thaumazein”: are you looking for balance in imbalance?
Balance is impossible, it is an abstraction. We are always in movement, in imbalance, it is a constant adaptation to a physical or mental environment. Balance is always a search, but we never really get there. It’s a fleeting moment of grace, a time of suspension that I’ve never known.
A tightrope walker, a dancer, how do your two disciplines fit together in the show?
Balancing is a discipline that is more circus-like, but which leads to a choreographic approach in the way of thinking about space. These are two entry points into the movement, two different but complementary points of view, I believe that this is what brought us together. It gave us an intertwined duo in which we move and it really resonates in our meeting.
How does the spinning top of “Thaumazein” play on this relationship?
This spinning top has several mobilities and we wanted to explore them physically. We first use it as an inclined plane, it remains fixed and we will play with this gravity which is a little different from that which we experience when we are on our two feet. Then the structure rotates, which generates another mobility which creates a feeling of weightlessness. Then we arrive at this mobility of the top at the end of its stroke, constantly moving, tilting. This is where we can really find issues of balance.
This brings to mind “Plan B”, an old show by Cie 111 created a dozen years ago in Toulouse, which was performed on a flat surface first horizontal, then inclined and finally vertical.
There is indeed a link with “Plan B”. I was a performer on this show, which I found astonishing to see and extremely pleasant to perform, and I wanted to develop work on this notion of altered gravity and on certain apparatus (the devices used in acrobatics, Editor’s note). I came to the idea that an object becomes a piece of equipment when it is used by several people, otherwise it is a simple stage object. The idea would be to make the “3D” bow a real apparatus by sharing it with several people. It’s a project I’m thinking about and there is a direct connection with “Plan B”.
Is the meeting of bodies, or not, also at the heart of “Thaumazein”?
Starting from this material of a completely intertwined duo, we wanted to unravel it, to know what an encounter is about, how it is built to become a strong relationship which will transform us. This duet has already been performed in public spaces, but it will be a first in a room, knowing that it is not the same material. Yesterday (November 5, Editor’s note), we went to play in the playground of a school where we wandered around in this mobility for two. In the room, the heart is this spinning top object which is not used in public spaces, which was really designed to be used in the room.
Finally, why did you come to settle in Ariège?
I came to settle in Ariège three years ago, for personal and family reasons in particular. The company followed in the fall of 2023, in October, it was a coherent moment to bring all our dynamics back to Ariège.
