Contre-nature

With this new production from Chaillot, Théâtre national de la Danse, Rachid Ouramdane continues to explore aerial movement in a piece that mixes body contact and off-the-ground dancing.

In this new work, the choreographer aims to highlight what drives our imagination of movement in a continued effort to explore aerial gestures. Alongside him are ten performers of the Compagnie de Chaillot with various styles and techniques. “It takes people with somewhat diverse back[1]grounds, people equally comfortable in the air and on the ground. We need all these ways of dancing, moving and lunging, and share all of that,” explains the choreographer.

To that end, a motley group of 10 performers with subtle movement styles will gather to combine and intertwine their languages and spawn a new one at the intersection of aerial performance and dance. On a bare stage, now delineated by lighting now showing projected images in a mist, Rachid Ouramdane conjures childhood and aging. Through elements evocative of pas[1]sing time and absence, he imagines “how we keep going, influenced by other people that are not around anymore, these ghosts that accompany us.”