Boris Charmatz  infini

[Dance]

For the choreographer, dance is a means of testing the limits of the theatrical framework by confronting it with the proliferation of actions, movement and voice. With infini, Boris Charmatz gives shape to this obsession of going beyond limits via an exploration of the act of counting and its variations at its most basic, pared-down level, opening up a vast and unexplored choreographic territory.

After his preceding work 10000 gestes, Boris Charmatz continues to dig deeper and deeper into the organic and conflictual relationship between the finite nature of the body and the multiplication of numbers, or between physics and algebra. This time around, however, he uses infinity as the starting point for his investigations. Both philosophical and mathematical object, pure abstraction and pillar of reality, infinity is by its very nature a proliferating concept, the essence of which is too much for us to grasp. In order to give shape to this “turbulent infinity”, Boris Charmatz sets down an experimental framework which enables him, to particle accelerator-like effect, to come closer to its edges, centre and periphery. Navigating a path between mathematical purity and the symbolic value attached to numbers – dates, signs, rhythms or ritornello – the performers dance and count at the same time : 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. Like a malleable matter of some sort, infinity is embodied, said, shouted out or hummed, giving rise to a molecular form of dance – a broken-up, constantly mutating jigsaw puzzle which diffracts, disperses and condenses.
In parallel with this new work, Nanterre-Amandiers presents Levée – the result of a workshop led by Boris Charmatz’s team with pupils from the Hauts-de-Seine conservatories. Drawing upon material from the Levée des conflits piece, these young dancers bring us a vast, choir-like corpus of gestures.
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Running time  infini : 1h
Running time  Levée : 20 min.