«New movements for old bodies is a collective work to which each performer brings his share of creativity, in function of the improvisation subjects and texts proposed by Berrettini: a community at work, where the creative process leads to the editing of sequences and sound by the choreographer. The discontinuity of sequences arises from a process of condensation or shifts of meaning, a senseless succession of moving images, and an audiovisual volume with a rhythm reminiscent of a zapping session. Images of dance using the movie and television screen as their frame of references; the specular lining of theatrical space no longer appears as a mere mirror surface, but as a screen. The spectator’s capacity to look is at stake in New movements for old bodies, through a dance playing with the boundaries between reality and fiction, between feigned improvisation and methodical awkwardness. Space is split by the successive appearances of the characters and their simultaneous actions. The rigour of the performance is based on the manipulation of fragment, the succession of solos and ensemble dancing, sentences that roll up or escape by logical absurdity, the expressive value of the music modulating the atmospheres, while the rhythm of each action is punctuated by tones. The music generates space and action; the sound track is made up of instrumentals, songs, sound signals, recorded voices: all this contributes to making the stage the place of temporal variations and spatial tensions. The movements of bodies turning around faster and faster, bodies spinning on themselves and under another one in order to move it, body manipulations, fallen bodies, a body consuming itself. It is this staging of privileged moments, in which the burlesque aspect is brief, sudden, and which disorders all narrative continuity, challenging all logic, all moral and all form of gravity, turning the dancer into a metaphysical acrobat on a cabaret stage.” Extract of « De qui est la chorégraphie », by Michaël Thalmann in Le Journal des Laboratoires, #2, June 2004.
Extract of « De qui est la chorégraphie », by Michaël Thalmann in Le Journal des Laboratoires, #2, June 20