Mist | A film by Damien Jalet

"Mist" marks the debut of the Belgian-French choreographer Damien Jalet at Nederlands Dans Theater. Metaphoric and metamorphic, “Mist” was created in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic and captures a sense of surrendering to its ambient blurriness while finding a transcendent beauty that plunges the viewers into a hypnotic-like state. Following Damien Jalet’s and Kohei Nawa’s critically acclaimed pieces “Vessel” and “Planet [wanderer],” “Mist” uses the confrontation of bodies with different materials to reveal the constant shape-shifting nature of life and to explore a liminal space between science and mythology.

“Mist” is inspired by the phenomenon of fog banks that are often associated with the Netherlands, where the film was created and shot, and explores the ephemeral space between reality and mirage through a physicality that recalls the dynamics of evaporating, condensing, and falling water.

Using various kinds of fog through Nawa’s interactive and minimal set, the eighteen nearly naked dancers of the highly acclaimed NDT 1 interact, fuse, appear, and disappear through fumes that evoke, at times, fire, underwater volcanic eruptions, hurricanes, waterfalls, clouds, rivers, or snow avalanches.

Additionally, the work tends to evoke the style of Italian Renaissance paintings, and in particular, the Leonardo da Vinci technique of “sfumato,” which blurred the boundaries of the subject and its surroundings. Inspired by different myths about the transmigration of the souls after death as well as Japanese Shinto beliefs, Jalet’s visceral, carnal yet ghostly choreography takes a new intimate dimension through the lens of Iranian cinematographer Rahi Rezvani and light design by Urs Schonenbaum.

The film will be presented at the Onassis Stegi Main Stage in two special screenings following Jalet’s “Planet [wanderer]” performance, offering an immersive experience into the world of the renowned choreographer.

Reviews

“Filmed with a razor-sharp camera, the fog is almost palpable. The texture of the dancer’s skin has been portrayed in an exceptionally fine manner.”—Trouw

“The beauty is sometimes overwhelming”—NRC

“How the dancers express themselves in swirling plumes of smoke with their delayed motor skills and manage to find each other blindly, looks impressive”—Volkskrant