DIMITRI CHAMBLAS

Trained at the Paris Opera National Ballet School, Marion Barbeau and Ulysse Zangs grew up in an environment where their discipline began to shape their bodies already when they were teenagers. Repeating, starting over, learning rigor until it became second nature, all these experiences left a lasting mark on their gestures and worldview. And yet, their careers have taken them well past the world of ballet; Marion has become a stage actor and dancer, and Ulysse has extended his movement-based practice to the world of music and sound research. Drawing on these intertwined histories, Dimitri Chamblas has created a work that explores the ways in which an art form transforms those who practise it. During a technical demonstration, virtuosity becomes a threshold, a way to arrive at a true sense of intimacy and to attain another level of mindfulness. In a bare space, each movement is amplified by the void, as if it were imbued with a subterranean memory. Bodies become places of passage for childhood memories, buried emotions, and absent presences. In this confrontation with immensity, bodies tell a larger story than just about themselves, and dance thereby becomes a living memory.

Standing performance