Salt / Exaucé © Édouard Lock
“A dark environment, a controlled gestural language that continues to advance my fascination with complexity and the use at times of point technique to further distance the dancers from the ground, keeping their hold on this world as tenuous as that of souls, ” is how Lock describes the new work. “ I suppose I still consider the paths and the direction the body takes in movement to be as real as the bones that make it up and the thoughts that order it. Movement is the silent voice, a significant indicator of the personal unconscious and the social unconscious. The process, however, is abstract and my pieces will never reveal anything absolute; instead, they create the desire to see and to observe visual relationships. The union between a thing and the other thing is the only thing I want to understand.”
This piece, which will take the company into the next millennium, is a continuation of a body of works that has left its mark on the performing arts over the last fifteen years. The work is a cascading series of lyrical and intense pas de deux, of choreographic phrases and sequences unfolding at the speed of thought, purposely disorienting our perception. Disrupting the dance are projected images evoking the passage of time - the first babblings of infancy, early childhood, lost adolescence - time which speeds up and pounds away relentlessly. The sound landscape for piano, cello and electric guitar, played live on stage, was created by American composer David Lang, with additional music by Kevin Shields of the Irish group My Bloody Valentine.
There are ten dancers and three musicians in this production. Set designer Stéphane Roy conceived the decor, an immense, labyrinthine grid; Vandal designed the women’s costumes, and the lighting was designed by John Munro. The film was made by Édouard Lock..
Choreography
Édouard Lock
Dancers
Amy Brogan
Yvonne Cutaran
Mirko Hecktor
Lawrence Rabson
Jason Shipley-Holmes
Stephanie Slater
Naomi Stikeman
Rick Gavin Tjia
Zofia Tujaka
Musicians
Anne-Marie Cassidy, violoncelle
Kong Kie Njo, piano, direction musicale
Jean-Claude Patry, guitare électrique
Musical composition
David Lang
Kevin Shields
Musical arrangements
Normand-Pierre Bilodeau
Kong Kie Njo
Jean-Claude Patry
Anne-Marie Cassidy
Set designer
Stéphane Roy
Lighting designer
John Munro
Costume designer
féminins Vandal
Women's Costume
Vandal
Men's costumes
Gérard Mayeu et fils
Set Construction
Centre National des Arts, Ottawa
Transformation Éclipse, Montréal
Co-producers
Saitama Arts Theater, Saitama, Japan
Centre National des Arts, Ottawa, Canada
Théâtre de la Ville, Paris, France
Het Muziektheater, Amsterdam, Holland
deSingel, Antwerpen, Belgium
Theater der Stadt Remscheid, Germany
Léonard de Vinci/Opéra de Rouen, France
with help from Internationale Tanzwochen Wien, Austria
and Fondation Daniel Langlois, Montreal.
LA LA LA HUMAN STEPS WISHES TO THANK:
The Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, the Canada Arts Council, the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade of Canada, the Conseil des arts of the Montréal Urban Community, the co-producers, La Fondation Daniel-Langlois and Quebecor.
