Statut
Présentation
Press
Most of the audience seems enthusiastic about discovering this production in which Michèle Noiret continues to build one of those worlds she has a liking for. A joint signatory to the design along with stage designer Alain Lagarde and video director Aliocha Van der Avoort, the choreographer brings together ten dancers in a mysterious space-time – split in two. A screen overhangs the stage. A static shot of a hotel room and its successive occupants, its ghosts. The strangeness is at play, the bodies appearing in it, searching for themselves, fleeing from themselves. On the stage, movable partitions, mirrors, disturb the real, the reflection, the double, the look. We find there all Michèle Noiret’s talent for building "characters" never the same as the personalities of the performers – not necessarily used to giving themselves such free rein."
Reflections, similarities between the sequences on the big screen and the action taking place live in front of our eyes, mysterious women always on the edge of the drama… several ingredients from some of Michèle Noiret’s earlier pieces are here. (…) The dancers have slipped into the world of this Hotel Folia with real presence, both in the more cinematographic sequences and the flights of group choreography to the tunes of Scarlatti and Vivaldi. Present on the big screen in pre-recorded sequences, they also multiply on the stage through the mirrors, spreading turmoil and constantly changing our feelings. So the spectator becomes a voyeur of comings and goings, minor daily dramas and other excesses of this Hotel Folia, where everything seems possible."
Hotel Folia manages to establish an enigmatic atmosphere, reminiscent of a good detective novel or a thriller, unusual for a Ballet. Ten dancers in city garb run across each other in a hotel décor, a place of coming and going, and waiting, with endless corridors and anonymous rooms. A crossroads of encounters, where stories can unfold… Thus Michèle Noiret precisely draws her characters (…). On the big screen the video extends what we see on the stage, or zooms in on the details, a hand, an expression, enabling us to enter the depths of the characters. (…) When the video ends, some fine recollections remain of the performance. A pure moment of dance where the dancers ‘let themselves go’ to the invigorating baroque music of Vivaldi and Scarlatti. Or indeed the nightmare scene, performed by Angelo Vergari."
The Ballet de Marseille has put a lot of work into a production commissioned from the choreographer Michèle Noiret, a big name in contemporary French-speaking Belgian dance. Hôtel Folia, a production designed together with stage designer Alain Lagarde, takes the dancers into a troubling, mysterious universe, where their bodies and shadows multiply, disappear, while the walls open up, swallow them up, spit them out. An astonishing piece for ten dancers."
Brigitte Lefèvre, director of dance at the Paris Opera invited Michèle Noiret.
What was it about Michèle Noiret's work that attracted you and pushed you to commission a piece from her for your dancers?
I see a huge number of dance shows. All over the world. I love to watch them, decipher them. I love to be surprised, reassured or shaken by a show. The wonderful thing about this art is that it is based on knowledge: a technique, a way of working, a personal apprenticeship. And Michèle Noiret has this knowledge of the body. I saw a very pretty woman, who is both shining and tormented. She has both shadow and light. She is very direct. I liked "In Between". I saw this dance that she masters in its creation and in its transmission to her dancers. She is also very interested in the visual side of her work and new technologies, but never uses them to show off or simply to introduce formal beauty. For her, these technologies are an essential accompaniment in order to move forward. It is rare to see a talent like hers, a singular personality, unconcerned by trends. There was a real meeting between her, the dancers and the teams. There is always a risk for a choreographer working in a prestigious house like ours. But she managed everything with great simplicity.
Cast & credits
Conception Michèle Noiret, Alain Lagarde, Aliocha Van der Avoort
Choreography Michèle Noiret
Created in collaboration with the dancers of the Ballet National de Marseille Thibault Amanieu, David Cahier, Katharina Christl, Noémie Ettlin, Vito Giottla, Yoshiko Kinoshita, Agnès Lascombes, Mylène Martel, Angelo Vergari, Anton Zvir.
Assistant Kathleen Reynolds
Ballet master Sophie Faudot Abel
Repetiteur Thierry Hauswald
Set design and costumes Alain Lagarde
Video Aliocha Van der Avoort
Original music composition Jean-Christophe Scottis
Music Alessandro Scarlatti, Antonio Vivaldi
Light design Xaviers Lauwers
Production of Ballet National de Marseille in partnership with Compagnie Michèle Noiret.
The Compagnie Michèle Noiret is subsidized by Le Ministère de la Communauté française Wallonie-Bruxelles, Service de la Danse