Onassis
What’s OnDancing Athens
Part of: Dancing Athens

danse de nuit

Boris Charmatz

Dates

Prices

Free admission

Location

Athens

Time & Date

Day
Time
Venue
Day
Saturday-Sunday
Time
21:00
Venue
Kotzia Square

Information

Tickets

Free admission

Addressed to

For viewers under the age of 18, parental consent is necessary

Duration

40 minutes

What exactly is the "danse de nuit"? A nocturnal dance which the unsuspecting viewers see as they wander the city streets at night? Or perhaps another form of contemporary expression, a secret code people use to communicate with?

Photo © Louis Theillier

Boris Charmatz is a choreographer in the most unconventional sense of the word; hugely gifted, provocative, a tireless critic of movement conventions, his work never ceases to pose questions about the nature of dance. From his first creative ventures, he has been seeking a free, ‘untrained’ form of expression, calling into question the codes of the fabricated spectacle, taking his productions off the stage and out into the open air, and redefining the established relationship between audience and performer. But Charmatz has never shown the slightest respect even for these innovations; despite a ‘lost innocence’ in their exploration of movement, his works reveal the desire to forge a link between dance and the primal pleasure the body can bestow when it is free of expectations, interpretative frameworks or limitations.

In “danse de nuit”, Charmatz takes dance back to its birthplace in the heart of the city. This ancestral linkage signifies dance’s receptiveness to various vibrant forms of expression, but also seeks to deconstruct or articulate all its characteristics, familiar or not, in a unique way and create a true “dance of the city” in the process. In essence, it’s an experiment whose upshot remains extremely hard to predict. Essentially, it isn’t the clarity of the message that matters, though; it’s the urgent sense of reinhabiting public space, forming a community of bodies, creating a strange rift which appears in the city at night.

Part of

Credits

  • Interpretation

    Boris Charmatz, Ashley Chen, Olga Dukhovnaya, Julien Gallée-Ferré, Peggy Grelat-Dupont, Marlène Saldana

  • Choreography

    Boris Charmatz

  • Light

    Yves Godin

  • Costumes

    Jean-Paul Lespagnard

  • Vocal Training

    Dalila Khatir

  • “Glossolalia” realised from

    dancers’ improvisations, the texts “Erasure”, “Hands Touching”, “Move” and “Starfucker” by Tim Etchells, the words of Patrick Pelloux in Radio France Inter on January the 8th 2015, writings by Boris Charmatz, quotes and reappropriations from Robert Barry, Marc Gremillon, Bruno Lopes, Didier Morville, Thierry Moutoussamy, Bruce Nauman, Christophe Tarkos, as well as a French counting-out rhyme

  • General Stage Manager

    Fabrice Le Fur

  • Light Technician

    Mélissandre Halbert

  • Rehearsal Coach Touring

    Magali Caillet-Gajan

  • Line Production

    Sandra Neuveut, Martina Hochmuth, Amélie-Anne Chapelain

  • Line Production (for the Onassis Stegi)

    Tassos Lagis

  • Production

    Musée de la danse / Centre chorégraphique national de Rennes et de Bretagne

  • Directed by

    Boris Charmatz

  • The association receives grants from

    the Ministry of Culture and Communication (Regional Direction of Cultural Affairs / Brittany), the City of Rennes, the Regional Council of Brittany and Ille-et-Vilaine General Council.

  • The Institut français regularly supports

    the international touring of Musée de la danse.

  • With the support

    he Fondation d'entreprise Hermès within the framework of the New Settings programme

  • Co-production

    Théâtre National de Bretagne-Rennes, Théâtre de la Ville & Festival d’Automne à Paris, la Bâtie-Festival de Genève, Holland Festival-Amsterdam, Kampnagel-Hamburg, Sadler’s Wells London, Taipei Performing Arts Center, Onassis Stegi – Athens

  • Thanks to

    Le Triangle-cité de la danse, Rosas, WIELS Centre d'Art Contemporain (Bruxelles), Arnaud Godest, Perig Menez, Mani Mungai, Jolie Ngemi, Frank Willens

  • With the kind authorization by

    Tim Etchells for the use of his texts

Biography

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