Braises

What is a choreographer’s career made of? Laughter, fatigue, sweat, emotion, blows, traces? On stage, we will burn the gestures of the past to see what the ashes of a dance are made of.

Michel Kelemenis’s latest pieces stand out for their non-formal approach to the demands placed on performers. An astonishing dynamic emerges; the living overwhelms the stage. In his research, the choreographer seeks to deepen the anchoring point of his desire to write movement at the heart of bodies, in order to free them and, through them, free human beings.

Already, in these recent works, elements of the past slip in and twist, sometimes mischievously, sometimes for pleasure, through thematic echoes, or because he recognizes in them aspects of a personal syntax. BRAISES invites 7 performers to take hold of elements gleaned from immaterial archives made up of images, emotions, and fragmented memories—not to regenerate forms, but to make them the fuel for impulses renewed by today’s bodies…

The time has come for the freedom of a stroll in the joy of being present with the dancers, who transform the writing into illuminations through their regenerative, carefree, baroque, and playful light. An act of creation set to music by collaborator Angelos Liaros Copola, to savor the present together, in opposition to a hostile, anxiety-inducing, isolating, and warlike surrounding reality.

Between poetic index and grounding in current affairs, BRAISES marks Kelemenis&cie’s fortieth season.

Conception, choreography, set design Michel Kelemenis Original music Angelos Liaros Copola Performers 7 dancers from Kelemenis & Cie