Statut
Présentation
Press
Performed in the hall of Val de l’Arc sports stadium, Michèle Noiret's “Territoires intimes” once again includes the sophisticated video experiments the Belgian choreographer has been developing these past seven years. Loosely inspired on Virginia Woolf's novel “The Waves”, this piece traps four men and two women in the snares of their innermost feelings, which are not in keeping with their everyday lives.
(...) With the help of images, either previously recorded or broadcast live (the most compelling sequences are the ones that are projected in real time), appearing on the movable screens, Michèle Noiret reveals each character's private spiritual distress and tries to bring the unconscious alive on stage. She partly succeeds in this ambitious undertaking.”
Territoires intimes" is a piece at the height of intimacy, dreaminess and sensuality. A lyrical piece suggesting we discard reason and yield to the fascination of its fluid virtuosity. It makes us want to reconsider the notion of beauty and our appreciation of beauty. And it works its spells on an enchanting scale composed of grace, elegance and ambiguous inwardnes.”
Between remembrance and reality Michèle Noiret's most recent choreography poeticises gestures, smoothes out movements, scrutinises the inner life, delicately brings together images, sounds and bodies, and manages to hold the audience suspended in dreams for a long, long time. These “Territoires intimes” are remarkable!”
Territoires intimes”, loosely based on Virginia Woolf's novel “The Waves”, expresses each dancer's secret and intimate feelings, as well as their dreams. Sliding panels reveal or hide the characters. This game on appearances and disappearances works well, just like the dancing that is delicate, restrained, unaffected. We are in the realm of literature as well as of choreography, as the characters function like the heroes of a novel, always ready to leave, always in a state of flux.”
Michèle Noiret's “Territoires intimes” is in keeping with the approach adopted by the choreographer since “Twelve Seasons”: here she reinstates the body's connection with reality and dreams by letting the dancers interact with sliding panels. New technologies are used to perfection, with the sliding panels acting as screens for projected images, as shadows, or as tools organising the dancers' entrances and exits. The piece was built on the performers' memories. It seems as if their precise and fast, yet sensual gestures set free scraps of their unconscious, like in Virginia Woolf's novel that was used as a reference by the choreographer and from which we hear a few mangled excerpts on the soundtrack.”
The essence of the ‘Territoires intimes’ put on the stage by Michèle Noiret is that of personal space: her aim is to project in movements the inner world of six dancers/characters. Loosely inspired on Virginia Woolf's work Michèle Noiret's dance effectively displays a similar psychological quality and the same recurring themes: waves, pages that have been read, a problematic approach of the body, seagulls, rooms, and minutes ticking away without any time passing. The dancers are superbly subjective, the four impassive men exhibiting a muscular and violent way of dancing, based on brutal contact and rejected seduction moves, while the two women toy with provocation, distance and hysteria in a deeply moving expressive range. The scenography is remarkable with its translucent removable panels that slide open and flutter like wings, incessantly rearranging space and allowing different kinds of projections, the interplay of shadows, obliterations and illusions. Live video broadcasts are superimposed on projected older images, which brings a temporal depth to their twin dimensions.”
Using technological tools with ever greater dexterity and assurance, Michèle Noiret and her team bring us a moving ‘Territoires Intimes’. The dancers seem to tell us parts of their lives, not in anecdotes but through a prism of sensations multiplied by the lighting and the images blending the past and the present in a scenography of moving screens, while sounds shift on stage and among the audience. Their secret and rustling world sometimes explodes on the screen in a flock of busy seagulls, the culmination of a meditation on life's course. In this stream of sensations Michèle Noiret inserts a fluid 'dramaturgy': a detail of a Sixties dress, a few theatrical elements, a sensual duet or tiny steps linking those unique sensations through memories or dreams to each individual's inner monologue and to these delectable Inner Territories.”
Rapture carries one away into an uneasy parallel universe, like a tightrope walker between the peaceful void and the abyss of infinity."
Cast & credits
Choreography Michèle Noiret
Created and interpreted by Juan Benitez, François Brice, Barthélémy Manias, Michèle Noiret, Sarah Piccinelli, Ali Salmi
Artistic assistant and videast Fred Vaillant
Rehearsal assistant Fernando Martin
Original music and live sound processing Todor Todoroff
Sound recording assistant Aline Hubert
Scenography Wim Vermeylen
Lighting design Xavier Lauwers
Costumes Azniv Afsar
Language coach Paul Anrieu
Technical coordination Philippe Warrand
Lighting technician Marc Lhommel
Photography Sergine Laloux
Production and tour manager Alexandra de Laminne
Administration and coordination Cathy Zanté
Duration 80 min.
Executive producer Compagnie Michèle Noiret
Coproduction Le Théâtre Les Tanneurs, Le Vivat-Scène Conventionnée d’Armentières, Lille 2004 - Cultural Capital of Europe, Le Manège de Maubeuge-Scène Nationale, Le FestivalDanse à Aix 2004, La Maison des Arts de Créteil, Le Théâtre d'Angoulême-Scène Nationale.
In collaboration with La Ferme du Buisson, Scène Nationale de Marne-la-Vallée
With the support of Le Ministère de la Communauté française de Belgique-Service de la Danse, le Ministre-Président Hervé Hasquin and La Loterie Nationale.