In the arena, suspended out of time, two male bodies in wrestler costumes share the space, approach, embrace, or confront each other in a battle with sacrificial overtones. The changing lights of day and night shape them like ancient sculptures exposed to view. Outside the ring, a voice chants the sequences like rounds, organizing the elements of the mysterious ceremony.
Postures of combat, contemplation, and waiting alternate; fragments of struggle and aerial movements, arm locks, and hieratic gestures intertwine like pure abstract variations, charged with opposing intensities. It is as if these two dancers—belonging to the Merce Cunningham company—were suddenly possessed by the fury of a professional wrestler, or as if Vaslav Nijinsky were transformed into Muhammad Ali.
Ambiguous metaphors of an indecipherable ritual, their bodies create a tension between the sculptural and the functional, the physical and the aesthetic, tension and relaxation. The changes in ambiance, lights, and poses act as filters that multiply interpretations, blurring perception. At the heart of this confrontation, where embrace, rupture, and domination succeed each other, one feels the shock of desire, the contact of muscles, of skin, a muted erotic violence that resonates throughout the entire scene
concept choreographyChantal Yzermans
performance Rashaun Mitchell, Silas Riener
costume Maartje Van Bourgognie
première France
Festival Internationale des Rencontres Chorégraphiques Seine Saint Denis, FR
15 mai 2009
première Belgium
Amperdans 2009, Troubleyn /Jan Fabre Antwerpen , BE
October 2009
With The Support Of
Jan Fabre / Troubleyn, Antwerpen (BE), Monty Arts Center-Antwerpen (BE), Rencontres Chorégraphiques Seine-Saint-Denis (FR)