Statut
Présentation
Press
Sait-on jamais?” is stamped with a certain je ne sais quoi, a hallucinatory quality induced by the mysterious interplay of shadows and light through which the dance weaves its patterns. Something disquieting too, even painful, as if the author were torn between two worlds, perhaps between truth and appearance. Between the visible and invisible. And that brings true magic to the piece…”
In this intimate environment, their dance is not that of demonstration, force or technique, nor a face-to-face confrontation with all the machinery involved in the piece. In fact, the spectator is almost oblivious to the huge research invested in the live interaction. In this point lies the force of the piece: technology here is inhabited rather than used as a gadget; more than an extension, it becomes part of the body, part of the unconscious, in a subtle dance”.
Sait-on jamais?” is the title of Michèle Noiret's choreography. This innocuous little phrase was chosen as a reference to Andreï Tarkovski. Neither the film director nor the choreographer is in the habit of producing trifles. Carrying on her research into the integration of dance and the new technologies Noiret arrives at a truly brilliant result, with the assistance of Todor Todoroff for the soundscape and Fred Vaillant for the visual aspects. Behind or in front of four screens where their images multiply the performers, Michèle Noiret and Sarah Piccinelli, confront or support each other in a dance along pure lines, as if they were surprised at discovering their own unsuspected yearnings. The play with images, a metaphor for the choreography, contributes to the exploration of the self, of its dissociation in space and time into fragments, superimposition and obliteration. One plunges into mystery, into a poetic fantasy and, in this place beyond convention where the self is scattered, one is submerged in emotion”.
(...) While watching this piece that almost looks like a conjuring trick and whose movements are set to extend, dissolve and metamorphose through the crossing and twirling loops of its performances, one wonders why the concept of 'cinematic dance' was never introduced before, while 'theatrical dance' is widely known. This transmutation of the body's and image's matter, this combination of the vertical planes of the screens with the horizontal surface of the stage, this coiling up of reality's three dimensions around the two recorded ones, reveal the ways imagination functions. It is closer to the wonder of a dream than to the disruption of reality. The use of technology's possibilities is invested with the wisdom of beautiful objects rather than the wish to be an iconoclastic adventure. It is a delicate chiselling rather than a sudden breaking up. In the realm of these bodies something is released, a narrative and sensual suggestion of a place about which rumours fly, where desires are supposed to be granted. But this place is surrounded by barbed wire. Michèle Noiret stays firmly true to an eminently feminine poetry of disturbing impulses, of dreamy crossings between the inner and outer world, and of the strangeness manifest in every presence. So she remains firmly outside of fashion, while subjecting her highly topical passion for technology to the staging of a universe that, conversely, could seem quite colourless. But in her case this is definitely a mark of her personality”.
Mystery, poetry, sensuality, emotion … there's all that and much more to be found in Sait-on jamais ?, Michèle Noiret's new creation. (...) This piece carries on with the exploration of the numerous possibilities offered by the association of dance and technology. Although very "faddish" this combination has been examined for many years by Michèle Noiret, whose constant preoccupation is with research, experiments and… the human dimension. For that strikes us most about her work, even more than in the previous performances: everything is based on the human dimension. And everything speaks of it. (...) Around words floating in the air and mingling with the sounds generated by their own movements Michèle Noiret and Sarah Piccinelli carve their highly elegant movements. Here the confrontation becomes majestic, pain unpredictable, laughter uncertain. And desire ubiquitous. One walks away from it (...) moved and confused”.
Boundaries shatter in Michèle Noiret's work as she drives her dance to encounter other art forms. Particularly since a few years, through the use of new technologies, (...) these – definitely not subsidiary – contributions are part of an impressive combinative arrangement. It is rather a successful example of interpenetration, of complementarity, of a new aestheticism due to the greater sensibility brought about by the sum of the parts. (...)Through the words, through the dancers' bodies and gestures, this dual and single femininity, this dissociation of the universal being confirms the other's presence in the self, as a friend or an enemy. The dance is pure and strict, but also playful, solemn and airy. (...) To exist, to know each other, to guess whom one is because one doesn't know. To draw the impulsion of the present from the conjunction of elements. And there, on stage, is offered to us that magic, fragile and whimsical, plural and precise, that rarely made for such a rich association with technology”.
Behind the screens several choreographic sequences unfold, divide, diffract, creating a fascinating effect as they are fictionalised and suffused with wonder. The dance performed by Michèle Noiret herself and by Sarah Piccinelli, the dance - the essence - is profoundly elegant and mature, split upon the sharp edges of a suggested narrative”.
Cast & credits
Choreography Michèle Noiret
Created and performed by Michèle Noiret et Sarah Piccinelli
Artistic assistant and video Fred Vaillant
Original electroacoustic composition and interactions Todor Todoroff
Light design Xavier Lauwers
Set design Wim Vermeylen
Costumes Azniv Afsar
Technical coordination and light technician Marc Lhommel
Photography Sergine Laloux
Production, tour manager, communication Alexandra de Laminne
Administration and coordination Cathy Zanté
Duration 60 min.
Production Compagnie Michèle Noiret/Tandem asbl
Coproduction Le Théâtre Les Tanneurs, KunstenFESTIVALdesArts, la Ferme du Buisson-Scène nationale de Marne-la-Vallée and le Théâtre d'Angoulême-Scène nationale
Produced with the support of Ministère de la Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles, Service de la Danse.