Saburo Teshigawara The Idiot
[Dance]In this production, Saburo Teshigawara, a landmark figure in contemporary dance, draws upon Dostoevsky’s novel in this piece which features dance only, with no use of text. This process of translating the intrinsic movement of the phrases to moving bodies affirms the Japanese choreographer’s status as a true sculptor of a unique, soulful form of dancing which is both pure and epic.
In taking up the challenge of creating a choreographic work from Dostoevsky’s sublime novel, Saburo Teshigawara constructs the keystone for a new approach to dance. A man, a woman, and a rat move around the stage beneath a quivering light, transforming the stage into a labyrinth. It also blurs our vision of the figures moving onstage. The electric atmosphere suggests winding paths leading towards an interior conflict of some kind, the question of the double, and the question of the other - both twin and opposite. Teshigawara’s choreographic ideas strike us as phenomena emerging directly from the depths of his imagination. It dictates a captivating danced calligraphy to muscle and nerve alike. Despite its fiery nature, this is dance of a finely-tuned nature, both intricately sculpted and fluid. Fleshed out by moving bodies which are by turns silent and noisy, words and mysteries, cries and groans, murmurs and sighs become physical movements. The texture of the gestures in the space echoes the novel’s structural images. This hypnotic show exalts in Dostoevsky’s contrasting universe, on the border between incandescent and glacial, frenetic and introspective, and traces out a honed-down, pure view of the world. The show gives us the opportunity to discover, or rediscover, two masters of their art - mirroring each other.
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Running time : 1h
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Running time : 1h
