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Danser Canal Historique | March 7, 2018
“Noisy Channels” by Liz Santoro and Pierre Godard, Gérard Mayen
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A new formalist attempt whose brilliance lies in its modest parameters and context.
You can always be intimidated when a piece by Liz Santoro and Pierre Godard is annonced. Their intentions are firmly based on strict formal principles. These are the result of a very solid reflection based on in-depth scholarly contributions, in terms of musical and choreographic composition, to the latest research in language sciences and their impulsion of data systems.
Well, agreement should be reached. These two artists have nothing to do with displaying science. But instead, to revive a tradition of modernity in art, which seeks to emancipate forms and their authors, sparing them the greasy mark of psychological and narrative subjectivities, which never cease to renew the romantic habitus in art.
Moreover, their latest attempt, "Noisy Channels", takes a side that is not so wicked. Let us note, among their faithful interpreters, a hesitation in the way they count their steps. Some people put the "one" on the beat, like classical musicians, others on the up-beat, like jazz musicians. "Noisy Channels" assembles as a trio to test this question and see how it turns out.
The spectator can believe that he is expected there as an applied student, not devoid of a few musical foundations, and then forces himself to examine the combinatorics of steps and rhythms, which the three dancers develop. Its Matthieu Barbin, Jacquelyn Elder and Cynthia Koppe, on the deep sound developed live by the creator I.r.c.a.m-ian Greg Beller.
And then basta. We can also grant ourselves a very impressionistic licence to perceive, which is not basically guilty. From the way of looking, it becomes the way of perceiving, more globally. The meeting, discreetly announced, was held in the POP barge, on the Bassin de la Villette (Paris). This place promises to be an "incubator for staged music". Strangely enough, among these music lovers, the boat is poorly soundproofed.
But it is precisely a discreet delight in this affair, to capture in murmurs the night owls on the platform, the siren of the emergencies crossing the district, even the attenuated accents of a street saxophonist (and the performers will believe that coming from the desk in improvisation!). The urban concrete permeates this early evening situation, in a space of rapprochement on tiny steps, under low ceilings, where everything breathes modesty; in fact conducive to all mental escapees.
After a heckled preparation, lasting only two weeks, the dancers find a platform of perfect balance in this spatio-temporal configuration, free from any sign of emphasis. This makes the algebra all the more clear as it is gently shifted from their three-way dispositions. We could touch their steps with an index finger, and caress the wave of vibratory induction that wins them to finally tint the entire volume of these places.
Paradoxically, an infinitely simple dance inspires the breath of a proven complexity of its combinatorial echoes. An increase occurs in the amplification of the intensities and untying of gestures. A mood of exhilaration permeates this encounter, where each of the three artists of the movement perceives himself with the moving wholeness of his body signature. A whole reserve of quiet elegance in Cynthia Koppe. A rounder delicacy in Jacquelyn Elder. A zest of electrifying queer torsion in Matthieu Barbin.
Faced with this type of choreographic writing, it is difficult to prevent his memory from calling to mind the motifs of the tradition of the great modernity of American abstract formalism (not without noting that Liz Santoro is part of the small choreographic community of the New Yorkers of Paris, while Pierre Godard is a great passionate John Cage). As in every case in such cases, so dated may seem such sources, we are amazed by a strictly intact fertility, always current, unalterable at the time, of these principles implemented.
In this case, starting from the so modest "Noisy Channels", one enjoyed meditating in full philosophical scope, on possible unitary arrangements which nevertheless never reduce themselves to a reducing factory of unisons. That says a lot about how to do it together. The choreographic art can excel in this, if it wishes and gives itself the means. Even: freedom.
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator