Olivier Dubois (France) —TRAGÉDIE (New Edit)
Duration: 90 min.
The performance features full nudity, including intimate areas of the body. Recommended age range 16+
The performance is the manifesto of the New Baltic Dance festival.
“I created “Tragedy” from a simple and terrible sentence: ‘To be human does not mean to create humanity — and that is our human tragedy.’ It still resonates, with undiminished violence. In the current Lithuanian context, this sentence takes on a new intensity.
But tragedy does not carry only disaster. It also carries hope — the hope born from what unites us, not from what makes us alike. It is an individual struggle offered to a fight greater than oneself, a gesture of defiance, a challenge thrown to the gods.
I would be honored if “Tragedy” found its place as the manifesto of the NEW BALTIC DANCE festival — as a symbol of the fight for dignity, freedom, and culture. With respect and solidarity to the Lithuanian civil society, Olivier Dubois.”
The premier at the Avignon Festival in 2012 felt like a choreographic uppercut, and immediately became a manifesto piece, a veritable monument of contemporary dance.
Ten years after its première, this choreographic poem has been rewritten by Olivier Dubois for eighteen performers. The new take propels the viewer into the “feeling of the world” with the same power. Dizzying and chaotic. On giant percussion instruments, in an incessant ebb and flow, the great cycle of life is played out, made and unmade. It is humanity seen as a palimpsest, written upon, erased and written upon once again… An unending quest!
In “Tragédie”, the performers manifest their belonging to the community of human beings. They pound the ground, walk about, straighten up, face one other, slide, kneel, appear, disappear, blend in so as not to capsize… and attest to our collective fate.
Olivier Dubois has been shaking up the French contemporary dance scene for more than a decade with some of the most radical choreographic work to date. The director of Ballet du Nord from 2014 to 2017, he was named one of the twenty-five best dancers in the world in 2011 by Dance Europe magazine and boasts a unique experience working between creation, interpretation and pedagogy.
OLIVIER DUBOIS is currently an associate artist at the CENTQUATRE-Paris and L’Onde Théâtre – Centre d’Art in Vélizy- Villacoublay (78) with his company COD.
Conception: Olivier Dubois
Interpretation: Esther Bachs Viñuela, Taos Bertrand, Camerone Bida, Steven Bruneau, Marie-Laure Caradec, Coline Fayolle, Karine Girard, Steven Hervouet, Aimée Lagrange, Sophie Lèbre, Sebastien Ledig, Matteo Lochu, Sarah Lutz, Nicola Manzoni, Thierry Micouin, Mateusz Piekarski, Emiko Tamura, Mooni Van Tichel
Creation assistant: Cyril Accorsi
Music: François Caffenne
Head technician: François Michaudel
Lighting: Patrick Riou
Lighting technician: Emmanuel Gary
Production COD – Compagnie Olivier Dubois
Coproduction (2012): Festival d’Avignon / L’apostrophe scène nationale de Cergy-Pontoise et du Val d’Oise / CENTQUATRE-Paris / La Rose des vents Scène nationale Lille Métropole à Villeneuve d’Ascq / Mâcon Scène nationale / Ballets de Monte-Carlo/Monaco Dance Forum / Malandain Ballet Biarritz dans le cadre de l’accueil studio.
Coproductions (for the new edit): Maison de la Culture d’Amiens / Les Halles de Schaerbeek – Bruxelles / Théâtre Paul Éluard (TPE) de Bezons, scène conventionnée d’intérêt national Art et Création – danse /Festival de Marseille / Théâtre de Nîmes – scène conventionnée d’intérêt national – Danse contemporaine / CENTQUATRE-Paris
Supports for the retake: Mattatoio and the Festival Equilibrio – Fondazione Musica per Roma / ULTIMA VEZ – Win Vandekeybus / Mercat de les flors, Barcelona / SPEDIDAM, société de perception et de distribution qui gère les droits des artistes-interprètes en matière d’enregistrement, de diffusion et de réutilisation des prestations enregistrées / Région Île-de-France / L’Institut Français à Paris / La ville de Paris
COD – Compagnie Olivier Dubois is supported by the French Ministry of Culture / Directorate General of Artistic Creation – Dance Delegation.
Premiere: At the Avignon Festival in 2012.
Recreation: 2022 m.
Photos by: François Stemmer.
Website: https://www.olivierdubois.org/
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