DIEstinguished

2022
Show / Dance DIEstinguished is a dance and video piece. Here, dance is conceived as an experience, rather than a form. Video acts as a live and uninterrupted record of this fleeting experience. For the dancing body, space suddenly expands or contracts, time condenses or stretches, objects and other bodies become partners in play and imagination. What would […]

Show / Dance

DIEstinguished is a dance and video piece. Here, dance is conceived as an experience, rather than a form. Video acts as a live and uninterrupted record of this fleeting experience. For the dancing body, space suddenly expands or contracts, time condenses or stretches, objects and other bodies become partners in play and imagination. What would an arm, a stomach or a toe see? It is this highly sensory and sensual experience that the video intends to convey.

Equipped with cameras as a kind of extension of their bodies or prostheses, the performers film themselves in movement and the images are transmitted live to the audience's smartphones. At the heart of La Ribot's video research for over twenty years, the concept of "corps opérateur" refers to a unique and pioneering method of filming that she has developed, in sequence shot with a hand-held camera. For the first time, DIEstinguished brings this research to the stage. In addition to the traditional frontal perspective of the theatre, the video device gives a close-up view of the dancing bodies and invites the audience to a dizzying play of scale between close-up and wide shot.

DIEstinguished reminds us that dance is an ephemeral art whose only constant is inexorable change. A utopia of constant change is staged, where dance becomes here an antidote to apathy. The bodies of the performers initiate all things, whether it be an apparently insignificant movement or a total upheaval. It is these same bodies in motion that have inspired Alexandre Babel's original music. Using the sound possibilities and suggestions of the dancers, he composes an organic and mysterious soundtrack.

Set in a saturated universe where imagination reigns, DIEstinguished constantly subverts the meaning of the objects that invade the stage. Bright tableaux emerge from the union of bodies and oscillate between the erotic, the ridiculous and the bizarre. Saturation, inherent to the contemporary world, is the result of the collage and interweaving of heterogeneous and recycled elements.

In a collaborative approach with Swiss performers and theaters, a local group of professional dancers joins the artistic team, thus continuing La Ribot's reflection on the integration of guests in her pieces.

credits

Direction and concept: La Ribot dance and choreography created with La Ribot Ensemble performers: Piera Bellato, Mathilde Invernon, Lisa Laurent, Thami Manekehla, Ludovico Paladini and local dancers from Neuchâtel: Mehdi Berdai, Eléonore Bovet, Jean Nicolas Dafflon, Maky Grochain, Idan Matary, Juliette Vernerey Geneva: Stéphanie Bayle, Alex Landa Aguirreche, Erin O’Reilly, Ambre Pini, Lola Riccaboni, Solène Schnüriger Vaud: Léna Bagutti, Sarah Bucher, Olivia Csiky Trnka, Raquel Fernandez, Alice Roudaire, Katerina Samokhina Valais: Christine D’Andrès, Clara Delorme, Faustine Moret, Hélène Renoux, Ilario Santoro Costumes and props: La Ribot and Marion Schmid Original music: Alexandre Babel Lighting: Daniel Demont Video technologist: Camilo de Martino Set design: Victor Roy Technical director, light and video management: Marie Prédour Sound management: Nicolas Houssin Artist in companionship: Natasza Gerlach Executive producer: Aude Martino Production and communication assistant : Iris Obadia Administrator : Gonzague Bochud Texts taken and adapted from My Life (1927), Isadora Duncan ; Blood Memory: an autobiography (1991), Martha Graham ; Un appartement sur Uranus (2019), Paul B. Preciado ; Grammaire espagnole (1986), Bordas edition.

Production: La Ribot Ensemble Coproduction: TPR - Centre neuchâtelois des arts vivants, La Chaux-de-Fonds, Comédie de Genève, Théâtre Vidy-Lausanne, ADN - Danse Neuchâtel
Support : Loterie Romande
Winner of Label+ romand performing arts 2020
Premiere at TPR - Centre neuchâtelois des arts vivants, La Chaux-de-Fonds on 28 September 2022.

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