At the ADC in Geneva, which has just named its new direction, choreographer Cindy Van Acker presents her latest creation “Quiet Light” until December 19. A show between shadows and sensory illusions inspired by the contemplative paintings of the Belgian Léon Spilliaert. Fascinating.
There are places that stand out more than others. We sing them, we paint them. So Ostend, in Belgium. For Alain Bashung “the sea recedes, hides its rolls. In the shadow of the dikes, she and I are bored. Our memories make floating islands. In Ostend, I have the fear of the scarf that frays at your neck.” Arno, who was born on this strip of sand, saw it as a painting: “Spilliaert lights the dike like every evening in the colors of despair. He paints us our tides, the sky and our looks. I’m alone with you Oostende Good evening”.
Léon Spilliaert (1881-1946) was also from there, born in Ostend and riveted on the horizon, looking out to sea, a painter’s palette protected from the wind. In turn, Cindy Van Acker falls under this strange spell. Of Flemish origin, the Geneva choreographer experienced her first dances in Antwerp, not far from this shore, but it is at the Fondation de l’Hermitage, in Lausanne, that she finds the painting of Léon Spilliaert and its link so particular to the light and the contour of his favorite landscape.
A soft light
It’s a painting, these paintings of Spilliaert and the North Sea that we find in “Quiet Light”, the latest creation for two performers by Cindy Van Acker, who last year received the Swiss Grand Prix des arts de the stage and its Hans Reinhart ring to salute his career as an emeritus choreographer.
“Quiet Light” could be translated as soft light. It bathes the stage in semi-darkness and projects onto the background of the dance stage the reflection of the two performers, Stéphanie Bayle and Daniela Zaghini, with the extraordinary fluidity of the gesture. The effect magnetizes the gaze, sometimes offering mysterious silhouettes of sylphs or apparitions of giantesses with arms like formidable nocturnal albatrosses.
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Dancing shadows
In “Quiet Light”, the light imagined by Victor Roy, master of shadows and optical illusions, also performs a dance, doubling the reflection of bodies and showing a kind of fantastic cinema of bodies in movement. The sea is not far from “Quiet Light” with these rustling wings and cries of gulls intertwined with the contemplative and spectral music of the artist Lea Bertucci, revisited in dub style by the inspired Denis Rollet.
It has often been said that Cindy Van Acker’s shows form a singular whole, achieving perfect osmosis between movement, sound and light. “Quiet Light” undoubtedly forms a form of climax from this point of view.
The choreographer’s geometric, mathematical writing draws dikes, birds in the wind, vanishing points, horizons, surf, lighthouses, semaphores and halyards that slam on the masts. In the center of the stage, a thin thread of light suddenly appears, connecting the floor to the ceiling, vibrating to the pulse of the music, offering a twilight light between saffron yellow and blue ink.
The dancers become silhouettes which slowly fade into an iodized sky. The movements slow down, the bodies blend together, the music falls silent. It is no longer a dance performance, it has become a living painting. Spilliaert lights the dike. And Cindy Van Acker shares with us the most beautiful of her visions.
Thierry Sartoretti/ld
“Quiet Light” by Cindy Van Acker, with Stéphanie Bayle and Daniela Zaghini at ADC, Geneva, until December 19, 2024; Théâtre Vidy-Lausanne, from January 21 to 25, 2025; Les Halles Theater, Sierre, October 2 and 3, 2025.
Performance “Les impromptus” at the Fondation de l’Hermitage, Lausanne, March 20, April 10 and May 8, 2025.
