Vidal Bini: Sombre

After “Morituri” (Créer est un combat), this new solo work by Vidal Bini serves both as a research framework and as a point of reference for the work undertaken in his dance, language, and thought cycle.

For several years now, Vidal Bini has been asking himself the same question as he continues to develop his choreographic approach: What is the first dance? Or, rather, how did dance come to humanity?

Was it a magical ritual, a dance that imitated nature, a hunting dance, a rain dance... Or simply a mobility that emerged from the pleasure of being alive? Or even a reaction to the possibilities of the human body, which has continued to transform itself throughout evolution and the appearance of the first human species?

By extension, and in tandem with the research into the interaction between movement and language, the question of the first word arises. How does one conceptualize an object, external to oneself, or a subject in itself? How does the need arise to invent a series of sounds that will be collectively accepted as designating precisely that object or subject? How does humanity create language?

It is from this notion of origin that the research for this new work develops. This solo also follows the thread of “Morituri,” through its focus on new narratives: new formulations of the issues contemporary societies are facing.

Following up on this question about the first dance and the first word comes a question about the end – like a ball thrown into the air, which will inexorably fall back to earth. What will the last dance be?

What will the last word be? Is the human species not already programming its own demise? To welcome or reject this disappearance, this extinction, which seems increasingly inevitable, in parallel with all the ecological and societal commitments that are developing, what bodies and what dances should we prepare? What words should we equip ourselves with?

Meta-morphosis, the after-form, also guides the composition, be it choreographic, musical, or textual. Etymologically, the prefix ‘meta-’ signifies the one that follows, changes, or participates in something. ‘Morphosis,’ on the other hand, means “transformation, formation, shaping.” In “the one that follows, changes, or participates in shaping,” a composition is constructed, in which documentary balances out prospective.

All the work initiated for “Sombre” plays on this notion, on these slow or brutal transformations from one movement to another, from one word to another, from one texture of body or voice to another.

The process of researching and practicing these metamorphoses is necessarily a long one, in order to achieve the right incarnation.

Where “Morituri” brought into play the body in combat and its representations within a technological set-up exposed to the public, the aim here is to re-imagine a natural and organic evolution, that of the circulation between breathing, sound, language, song, and movement.

Around a culturally oriented and necessarily fantasized origin of dance and language, a circular (or circulating) form is woven, placing the audience as close as possible to the transformations of the body and the voice.

Acting as a strange choreographic tour-de-chant, this solo plays off the multiple meta-morphoses already performed and yet to come, of a body seeking to acclimatize to the realities of its time as much as to circulate between its past and its future.

“I have the intuition that one needs to go further down, digging deeper and deeper, to reveal a dance and a voice from before codifications, before norms. This is probably impossible today, given our ultracodified contemporary society. It’s probably doomed to failure too, as the pitfalls of historical or cultural exoticism are too prevalent. It’s precisely this impossibility that I’d like to get into, in an attempt to make my way through and survive.”

-Vidal Bini

As part of a cycle entitled “Dance, language, and thought,” this second solo looks at the evolution and transformation of dance and language. It approaches these questions with the extremely strong awareness that the cultural and social constructs that lead to this questioning are acquired, not innate.

The notion of a new narrative – perhaps a little overused today, but originally developed by authors such as Donna Haraway – proposed as necessary for societal, ecological, and civilizational shifts that are probably already too late, is an axis whose exploration began with “Morituri” (Créer est un combat) and continues in this work.

By working on the tension between these notions of origin and the new narrative, writing a text designed for orality, and putting back into play the mobility of a body and its capacity for voice, language, and song, Vidal Bini seeks to find a poetic relationship to narration and, by extension, to the future.

The musical universe developed in previous performances and works also continues to be an area of research. Atonal, noisy, and synthetic music, combined with a more melodic and instrumental aesthetic, form a soundscape that supports both the body and language, whether spoken or sung.

For this project, Vidal Bini is returning to the working methods used for his previous solo.

The various artists associated with this project will be regularly involved as advisors in the creative process. Elements requiring construction in addition to design (set design, costumes) are entrusted directly to the appropriate people.