Doing two lessons of choreographic writing is not a common affair. In the flood of fast-paced entertainment that quickly dilutes in the blood, reading consistent and complex shows becomes almost an anomaly. It requires attention and concentration to which the speed of consumption of social networks gradually disaccustoms us.
The bias affirmed by the Montpellier Danse festival, under the keen direction of Jean-Paul Montanari, who signs here his forty-fourth, and final, edition, to defend the authors of contemporary dance proves to be an excellent opportunity to read works as learned as they are stylish. He hit hard from the opening of the demonstration on Saturday June 22. The British Wayne McGregor, leading high-tech artist, and the Japanese Saburo Teshigawara, each with his curiously undulating and immediately recognizable gestures, immediately set the bar high in front of an audience adhering to their captivating worlds.
In the imposing hall of the Berlioz Opera, at the Corum, Wayne McGregor, who worked here using an artificial intelligence (AI) system developed for several years in his London studios, took the 2,000 very far spectators with Deepstaria. Under this title evoking a giant jellyfish which constantly regenerates and lives in the depths of the oceans, it explores the attraction of emptiness and darkness. With nine dancers, he deploys an incredible panoramic whose scenes blend together like cinematographic shots. Rocky or shrill sounds imagined by sound designer Nicolas Becker and music producer LEXX, luminous dramaturgy of laser curtains that open and close, electronic rain, Deepstaria is an ultra-sophisticated picture book.
Technique Bombs
The gestures of the performers, all technical bombs, become liquid throughout the piece, like their costumes, gaseous white like sails. More than ever, McGregor is putting virtuosity under high pressure. Its segmented syntax in the mirror of a body each of whose members seems to want to express something opposed or contradictory to the others explodes.
Particularly muscular, almost gymnastic even, with vertical beats, extreme splits, close-up plies, his insatiable writing knows no end point and pulls to the line. Also missing, in this high speed, is the emotion which radiated in particular in his show for forty performers The Dante Projectpremiered in 2023 at the Paris National Opera to the lush music of composer Thomas Adès.
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