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Opening weekend of the Montpellier Dance Festival
Theater of the 13 Winds, Domaine de Grammont. 22-VI-2024. City Theater & Dance Group / Robyn Orlin: …How in salts desert it is possible to blossom… A project by Robyn Orlin with Garage Dance Ensemble and uKhoiKhoi. With 5 dancers from the Garage Dance Ensemble company: Byron Klassen, Faroll Coetzee, Crystal Finck, Esmé Marthinus and Georgia Julies. Original music performed by uKhoiKhoi with Yogin Sullaphen and Anelisa Stuurman. Costumes: Birgit Neppl. Video: Éric Perroys. Lighting design: Vito Walter.
Théâtre de l’Agora. 23-VI-2024. Compagnie Karas / Saburo Teshigawara : Voice of desert. Mise en scène, choreography, lighting conception, costumes : Saburo Teshigawara. Artistic collaboration : Rihoko Sato. Avec : Saburo Teshigawara, Rihoko Sato, Kei Miyata, Rika Kato, Izumi Komoda. Technical coordination, lighting assistant: Sergio Pessanha.
Studio Bagouet / Agora, Montpellier. 23-VI-2024. Institut des Croisements / Arkadi Zaides: The Cloud. Concept and direction: Arkadi Zaides. Dramaturgy: Igor Dobricic. AI development and sound: Axel Chemla–Romeu-Santos. Cast: Axel Chemla–Romeu-Santos, Misha Demoustier, Arkadi Zaides. Cinematography: Artur Castro Freire. Lighting: Jan Mergaert. Technical direction: Étienne Exbrayat
Dance from all over the world gathered for the opening evenings of the 44th edition of Montpellier Danse, which will be the last under the direction of Jean-Paul Montanari.
From the United Kingdom, with the world creation Deepstaria From Wayne McGregor in Japan, with Saburo Teshigawara, to South Africa, with Robyn Orlin, and the Belarusian Arkadi Zaides, many companies have chosen Montpellier for the world premiere of their creation.
Saburo Teshigawara: Voice of desert
At the Théâtre de l’Agora swept by the mistral, the elements inspire Saburo Teshigawara to write a slow, meditative and contemplative poem where the wind blows, the clouds pass and the storm roars. He entrusts the dancer and collaborator Rihoko Sato with the bulk of the show for long solos where she unfolds like a waving reed, with incredible refinement and suppleness. She is magnificent, like Saburo Teshigawara himself who, with his lively gestures, seems like a calligrapher caught up in the act of writing in motion.
Who are these Ibsenian characters who seem to carry the burden of the world on their backs? we ask ourselves throughout the show, admiring its conciseness, its limpidity and its purity. Surrounded by Kei Miyata, founder of the company and two younger dancers, these two accomplice dancers have exceptional dignity and grace.
Robyn Orlin : …How in salts desert is it possible to blossom…
Using special video effects, Robyn Orlin makes colorful daisies bloom in a salt desert with the dancers of the Garage Dance Ensemble and the musicians of Ukhoikhoi. A joyful and very colorful spectacle of the rainbow people!
For the hilarious performers of the Garage Dance Ensemble, everything seems a matter of curiosity and astonishment. We share their astonishment at these intertwining ropes and accumulations of clothes with which they are costumed, for an hour of concert, song and dance. Filmed from above the stage, or from phones placed directly on the stage, the video is a character in its own right in the show. The image allows you to shift vision and zoom in on expressions, movements or offer original viewing angles. The performers have fun with it and take it on with delight.
Throughout the piece, the two Ukhoikhoi musicians perched on a platform at the back of the stage deliver a superb vocal and musical performance, warm and intense. However, it is to the dancers that the art of transformation, of the mutation of arid land into fertile soil, falls. They make this lively show an ode to life which speaks of the history of the Colored people of Okiep, a town and a township located in the north of South Africa, on the border of Namibia, where the choreographer ‘is returned.
Arkady Zaides: The Cloud
This show by Belarusian-born choreographer Arkadi Zaides crosses two clouds: the nuclear cloud caused by the explosion of the Chernobyl power plant, and the AI cloud, integrating elements of his own biography. A personal story that starts in the Soviet Union, arriving in Israel at the time of the Iran-Iraq war, returning to the COVID crisis, then the invasion of Ukraine. It was during this period that the visual artist and choreographer became aware of his Ukrainian family origins. Quoting the book Voices of Tchernobylhe focuses on the 600,000 liquidators used at the risk of their lives by the authorities of the Soviet Union to clean up the Chernobyl prohibited zone.
After a first-person narrative, recorded and transcribed live by computer, the story is enriched and illustrated with photos commented live by Arkadi Zaides, and which are linked to images from his personal archives or national archives. He works live to associate words and images. We gradually realize that all the projected photos are false, created by the AI like archive photos: deformed faces, illegible inscriptions, which leads us to realize that the entire story may also be false. The live mixture of this true and/or false material takes shape on the giant screen located at the back and on the left side of the stage. The data and images collide, feeding the AI which restores them in a documentary mapping.
Arkadi Zaides wears the summary costume of a liquidator and gives way to a dancer for a solo, with, in the background, a frightening film showing the volunteers sent to shovel radioactive elements onto the roof of the reactor. Harnessed with lead, we know that they will still die because of this minute and a half of intense exposure to nuclear radiation. A bonus of 800 rubles and a certificate of honor from the Soviet Union, this is what they receive in gratitude for this suicidal act. The dancer is their young body today, a body that screams. Everything is falling apart, everything is distorted. The solo then transforms into a duet relayed by video images shot in the forest.
Photographic credits © Laurent Philippe
Read also: All our articles from the Montpellier Danse festival
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More details
Opening weekend of the Montpellier Danse Festival
Théâtre des 13 vents, Domaine de Grammont. 22-VI-2024. City Theater & Dance Group / Robyn Orlin: …How in salts desert it is possible to blossom… A project by Robyn Orlin with Garage Dance Ensemble and uKhoiKhoi. With 5 dancers from the company Garage Dance Ensemble: Byron Klassen, Faroll Coetzee, Crystal Finck, Esmé Marthinus and Georgia Julies. Original music and performed by uKhoiKhoi with Yogin Sullaphen and Anelisa Stuurman. Costumes: Birgit Neppl. Video: Éric Perroys. Lighting design: Vito Walter.
Théâtre de l’Agora. 23-VI-2024. Compagnie Karas / Saburo Teshigawara : Voice of desert. Mise en scène, choreography, lighting conception, costumes : Saburo Teshigawara. Artistic collaboration : Rihoko Sato. Avec : Saburo Teshigawara, Rihoko Sato, Kei Miyata, Rika Kato, Izumi Komoda. Technical coordination, lighting assistant: Sergio Pessanha.
Studio Bagouet / Agora, Montpellier. 23-VI-2024. Crossing Institute / Arkadi Zaides: The Cloud. Concept and direction: Arkadi Zaides. Dramaturgy: Igor Dobricic. AI development and sound: Axel Chemla–Romeu-Santos. Interpretation: Axel Chemla–Romeu-Santos, Misha Demoustier, Arkadi Zaides. Cinematography: Artur Castro Freire. Light: Jan Mergaert. Technical direction: Étienne Exbrayat
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