SHANGHAI BOLERO Triptych / THE MEN

Choreographic piece for 3 men
Creation 2011 Montpellier Danse
Remake 2016 
1st prize at the International Choreography Competition Machol Shalem Dance House Jerusalem 2017

This creation was ordered for the Shanghai World Expo 2010. It is built around the composition of Ravel’s “Boléro”, percei- ved here as a support, and it is presented in 3 choreographic forms.  I chose this work – of which Ravel said it was without music - for its simple, even banal, principle of composition, for its “cultural” dimension and its inclusion in the collective memo- ry, on a dance level as well as on a musical level: Few works have this rationale. I wish to juxtapose it as a support for new choreographic forms, treat its modernism and ours like a mir- ror. It is about revealing this work, seeing and perceiving it in a di erent way, giving dance and the body di erent postures, approaching notions of sensuality, eroticism, by questioning the construction of emotions, and eventually, approaching “the mechanics of desire” from a technical point of view: This approach can be seen as a search for a live form which allows the materialisation of the image of desire and fantasy. It is also about resituating the Boléro, questioning its place and its dimension in our perception of the world, questioning the no- tion of sacralization of the work. We will try to appropriate this work with the process of construction/deconstruction, or at least conduct a dialogue with it, a way of desacralizing it, and also a way to give it a di erent life with a di erent body. On the approach and the sources. With this creation I pursue the exploration of new subjects and regions by using guiding lines of an aesthetic which I continually enrich: the mechanics of the body, of bodies, precise movement execution as a means of transcending perception, immobility as a universe and as another way of perceiving movement, the positioning of the body in the geometry of space and the positioning of the geometry in the body, and "nally, the body as a sign, as a producer of signs. But this project shall be conducted by, for, and about women. A few references as explanation: Along with the mechanics of the body mentioned above, I propose a research on the “mechanics of desire” developed by Hans Bellmer and his studies, and the mechanics of the images he proposes. My attention is directed towards the technical as- pect of Hans Bellmer’s research (complexity and mechanical ingenuity of The Doll) as well as towards the images produ- ced, photos and drawings. This material will be handed over to the dancers.   

Didier THERON