Idea and choreography: Katarzyna Gdaniec i Marco Cantalupo przy udziale tancerzy/ with the participation of the dancers
Premieres: L’Octogone Théâtre de Pully – 17-19.02. 2011
Coproduction: compagnie linga, L’Octogone Théâtre de Pully
Dancers: Gérald Durand, Ai Koyama, Philippe Lebhar, Raquel Miro, Evangelos Poulinas, Marie Urvoy
Lights and scenery: Bert De Raeymaecker
Costumes: Machteld Vis
Sound track: François Plançon, Marco Cantalupo
Music: Taylor Deupree, Richard Skelton, Rafael Irisarri, Max Richter, Zeitkratzer & Carsten Nicolai, Alva Noto i Ryuichi Sakamoto, Phroq, Murcof
Photographer: Gert Weigelt
Touring: Karin Leuenberger
Administration: Françoise Oehrli
Duration: 65 minutes without intermission
Balance / Imbalance. A Salutary Disruption
We started out from the assumption that nowadays the notion of balance is applied in all sorts of different contexts, taking on a whole array of meanings. Society has a high regard for balance, seeing it as an ideal state to which we should all aspire – psychological balance, nutritional balance, ecological balance, balance in our love lives, the list goes on.
Nevertheless, perfect balance between two forces is only a transitory, precarious state. No more than a brief freeze-frame. Could it be that these constant references to balance are also the product of our society’s powers of coercion? Balanced individuals are considered useful and profitable. They lose their freedom. Under the prevailing laws of uprightness designed to anaesthetise and hypnotise us, any loss of control, any deviation, is acceptable only as an outlet allowing ourselves to let our hair down for a moment. Saturnalia. Or Carnivals.
Disruptive, disturbing and dangerous, imbalance is source of energy, renewal and creativity, a life force. In falling grace, we have concentrated on the point of inflection at which the sense of balance is lost as the body tries to reconnect with the dynamic forces to which it always reverts in order to move forward. We were fascinated by the moment immediately after that loss of balance, when movement remains suspended before the body is inevitably drawn towards the ground. This fleeting moment brings with it the memory of a state of grace and the illusion that we are challenging the laws of gravity.
Between precarious balance and inventive imbalance, falling grace is a celebration of creative fragility.
The choreographers
