SPEKIES (creation 2013 >>>> re-creation 2020)
Modul-Dance/EDN project (European Dancehouse Network)
SPEKIES ©Alain Scherer
By Cathy Blisson
Species (English)
Species (Latin, pronounced spe{k}iès) : aspect, appearance, vision
Initially, there is a desire to turn things upside down.
To reverse the process refined by La Zampa over the years, to take as a starting point a place of disappearance in order to work on a form of appearance.
To consider the disappearance (of the body) as the ultimate goal.
To probe its presence while disappearing.
Then, there is an enigma.
A sentence from Jacques Derrida, projecting into the future and the past in a same gesture, referring to an impossible direction.
A sentence with hints of premonition and warning.
A dead end, almost a threat. « The future belongs to ghosts ».
From there, we had the will to contact a specialist of enigmas – Caryl Férey author of new detective fiction – for him to write a text that would be inspired by the Egyptian Book of the Dead.
And the need to put a silhouette, or four hundred faces, behind these invisible presences of today. To sketch them implicitly.
Spekies is a variation around the disappearance of the body confronting a dancer (Magali Milian) to a guitarist (Marc Sens), 50 survival blankets, and a few dictaphones.
A dancer who is relieved from any artifice. A silhouette which seems to slide on the tips of sneakers* in the landscape it builds for itself, until it sinks down.
A musical universe without beginning or end, which spreads out in order to expand the time, to put the body in tension, to reveal its presence by flashes, to empty its substance, and to finally orchestrate its demise.
Metallic membranes which sediment into mountains, move, unwrap themselves, unfold around the emptiness, become relics, get deformed and create shapes, generate strange feelings of déjà vu.
And an hypnotic litany that clings to the body, coming out of a thousand sound sources, as if to track the forgotten, the ones who are ejected and erased from our time.
« …the one upon whom the rain hits
the one who arouses no sleeper
the one who has millions of them
the one who sleeps in his body
the one who lies between the rocks of the deep
the one who believes in clouds of powder
the one who swallows his arm
the one who closes his eyes at night and makes everything enter the night… »
Caryl Férey
* in a movement inspired by turfing, a street dance born on the west coast of the United States.
Translation Maxime Lachaud
Extracts from SPEKIES (re-creation 2020)
Choreography Magali Milian and Romuald Luydlin
With Magali Milian, Marc Sens
Music Marc Sens
Texts and collaboration Caryl Ferey
Direction and sound control Valérie Leroux
Light creation Denis Rateau
Production La Zampa
Co-production Théâtre de Nîmes, CDC Toulouse/Midi-Pyrénées avec le soutien de l’Union Européenne dans le cadre du programme Modul-dance, Théâtre de L’Archipel/Perpignan, Centre Chorégraphique National de Rillieux-la-Pape/Direction Yuval Pick, CHATEAUVALLON Centre National de Création et de Diffusion Culturelles
Re-creation residencies 2019-2020 La Métive, lieu international de résidence de création artistique – Moutier D’Ahun, Le Périscope – Nîmes
Residencies 2013 are supported by Union European in the framework of Modul-dance program Tanzhaus/Dusseldorf, Dansens Hus/Stockholm, GraneR and Mercat de Les Flors/Barcelone, ADC/Genève, Art Stations Foundation/Poznan, Dance Ireland/Dublin, KinoŠiška/Ljubljana
La Zampa is supported by Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication / Direction Régionale des Affaires Culturelles Languedoc-Roussillon, Région Languedoc-Roussillon, Conseil Général du Gard and Ville de Nîmes
CALENDAR
// December 2, 2021
Festival Charbon Ardent, La Grand'Combe
// December 3, 2020 >>>> POSTPONED (due to security measures related to the COVID-19 pandemic)
Festival Charbon Ardent, La Grand'Combe
// September 19, 2020
Festival Constellations, Toulon
// April 3, 2020 >>>> CANCELED (due to security measures related to the COVID-19 pandemic)
Musée du Saut du Tarn, in collaboration with ADDA du Tarn, Centre d'Art Le LAIT and GMEA Centre National de Création Musicale d'Albi - Tarn
// March 2-3, 2020
ADDA du Tarn - Dance Journey at the School Collège Balzac from Albi
// February 7, 2020
Le Périscope, Nîmes
// April 1-6, 2019
Revival - La Métive - Lieu de résidence et de création artistique
// April 9-10, 2015
Centre National de la Danse, Pantin
// March 3, 2015
Théâtre d’Aurillac
// February 19-20, 2014
Théâtre de l’Archipel, scène nationale de Perpignan
// February 13, 2014
Théâtre de Nîmes
// June 27, 2013
Malta Festival, Poznan (Pologne)
// April 10, 2013
Festival International Des Migrations 2 – CDC de Toulouse Midi-Pyrénées / PREMIÈRE
// January 31, 2013
Made in Dublin - Dance Ireland, Dublin (Irlande) / Work in progress
// November 3, 2012
Mercat de les Flors - Modul Dance Festival, Barcelona (Espagne) / Work in progress
// May 30, 2012
CoFestival, Ljubljana (Slovenie) / Work in progress