(terrain) infini - T984629529UK Premiere. Staged in Sadler's Wells main theatre but in an intimate configuration with only seating for 400 (including some on stage) this is a unique presentation. Numbers and counting set the pace - and the theme for this remarkable work. For centuries, dancers have counted to four, six, or eight, and then started over. In modern choreography, they may count in more complex ways, combining 13s and fives, but what would happen if they counted to infinity? Boris Charmatz explores the relationship between the finite nature of the body and concepts of infinity. Navigating mathematical purity and the symbolic value attached to numbers, the performers mesmerize as they dance and count at the same time, in a test of memory and resilience. They count on the spot, backwards, towards the infinitely small and the infinitely large, alone or in unison, keeping the beat or standing in the face of time. | |
| 22 Mar 22 to 23 Mar 22 | Sadler's Wells Theatre, Inner London :: V224 listing details L066368392 |
(terrain) Somnole - T1162569160UK Premiere. Boris Charmatz explores the idea of somnolence - the feeling of being on the brink of sleep. After a series of group performances and collective events, and in contrast to his work infini, he returns to the minimalist format of dance solos. Accompanied only by the sheer sound of whistling, melodies surface, blend and break apart. The relationship between the sound and the movement is in turn deliberate, halting, sleepy and acute. Somnole is a vaporous dance that unites familiar melodies and slumberous gestures. Like a body seeking sleep, Boris Charmatz invents an insomniac dance, a refuge of rhythms and refrains at the frontier between wakefulness and sleep. | |
| 18 Mar 22 to 19 Mar 22 | The Lilian Baylis Theatre, Inner London :: V236 listing details L01762867133 |
10000 gestures - T01028244523For 10000 gestes, I envision a choreographic forest in which no dancer ever repeats any of the gestures, each of which will be shown only once and will vanish as soon as it has been executed, like an ode to the impermanence of the art of dance. This shower of movements, which could have been a data project generated by lists of digital parameters, will be instead generated in an artisanal way, using the very bodies of the performers, in an absolutely subjective way. The visual hypnosis exerted by the explosion of movements will have a corresponding meditative, or even melancholic, aspect: the "gift" of movements doomed to symbolic disappearance. | |
| 22 Jun 19 to 23 Jun 19 | Tate Modern, Inner London :: V0639819942 listing details L1083786148 |
Musee de la danse - danse de nuit - T01902220584Sadler's Wells presents an adventurous dance performance off-site by one of the most thought provoking choreographers working today. Boris Charmatz, acclaimed French former ballet dancer turned mischievous experimentalist, brings his latest production danse de nuit to the top of a multi-storey car park in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. Last seen taking over Tate Modern, he plays with expectations, dealing with the complexities of human experience in unexpected ways. This spring we go with him after dark, to the edge of the city, to a place where dance does not usually go. In danse de nuit (French for ?dance of the night') six dancers are moved by a palpable sense of urgency: what are they doing there? They seem to have a lot to say. Made after the Paris terrorist attacks of 2015, this new work meshes with the city itself. Like playing truant after hours when we should be safely at home, this is an invitation to not play it safe. | |
| 17 May 17 to 20 May 17 | Sadler's Wells Theatre, Inner London :: V224 listing details L0229964006 |
