Boris Charmatz 20 danseurs pour le XXe siècle et plus encore

The Théâtre du Châtelet was, at the start of the 2Oth century, one of the pillars of avant-garde choreography, hosting the Ballets Russes, Afternoon of a Faun by Nijinsky, and Parade by Satie and Cocteau, among others. Within its walls steeped in history, 20 danseurs pour le XX^e siècle et plus encore puts on display an untamed collection of gestures stemming from Boris Charmatz’s imaginary museum.

Under the direction of Boris Charmatz, the Musée de la danse has invented a profusion of formats shifting dance from its places of preference to undiscovered terrains. Ranging from showings in libraries, museums, open-air venues and the opera, the event that 20 danseurs pour le XX^e siècle et plus encore constitutes is a nomadic, living exhibition: a concentrated dance history, brought into the present by the gestures of those embodying it. This plural, decentralised history mixes up all styles and digs down into the different strata of an art form which has been absent from the History of Art for a long time. Representing the diversity of dance in all its states, the performers spread out across the architecture enabling the free flow of a scattered, archipelago-like form of dance, with no stage, nor décor – rendering up all the different possibilities of connections and correspondences. In complete freedom, audience members navigate the corridors, hall, and wings, giving each of them the freedom to recompose a living archive of dance or, alternatively, to get lost, linger, moving on from one echo to the next… For the purposes of this new version at the Théâtre du Châtelet – this historic place of choreographic modernity – Boris Charmatz seeks to go beyond the limits of the 20th century in order to burst in upon our present, and to add a chapter to this history in the making : 20 danseurs pour le XX^e siècle et plus encore…
––––––
Running time : 3h