Outsider

With 21 Ballet du Grand Théâtre de Genève dancers and four extreme sport athletes, Rachid Ouramdane’s show is crafted in the image of a crowd. The horizontality of movement pairs with Julius Eastman’s hypnotic music.

For several years, Rachid Ouramdane has oriented his writing towards masses in motion, in performances that question community and the place each individual seeks within it.

After working with the Lyon Opera Ballet (Tout autour, 2014) and the Ballet de Lorraine (Murmuration, 2017), the choreographer brings on board dancers and extreme sport athletes for a cross-disciplinary creation. Outsider explores the image of the swarm and that precise moment when the horizontality of movement is in jeopardy. The show questions the limits that a dancer or athlete can surpass.

In dialogue with the repetitive music of Julius Eastman—a little-known figure in minimalism and the vibrant New York art scene of the 1970s—this choreography encourages the performers to take on the risk of falling. It is a bounding pulse that guides their collective movements like a crowd grappling with the interplay of lines generated by the dimensions of the set and the lighting design.