FAUN / NOETIC

Since July 2022, after seven years at Ballet Vlaanderen, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui has been the director of Ballet de Genève. A personage from the Belgian contemporary scene, the prestigious dancer and choreographer has crafted several important works with interesting interdisciplinary collaborations with visual artists, designers and musicians.

From the reference to Nijinsky’s mythical choreography by the Ballets Russes, after Mallarmé’s poem, in 2009 Sidi Larbi created his own Faun at the request of Sadler’s Wells. Here, the figures take on greater three-dimensionality and show mythological and savage aspects, extremely sexually charged. From Debussy’s music, but also with other interspersed excerpts by Nitin Sawhney, the childish and archaic play are combined to leap from one style to another, from one culture to another, from one century to another.

In the second part of the programme, we can enjoy a proposal from 2014: Noetic, which explores the idea that a straight line is actually a curve and can be connected through the shape of the circle. With the collaboration of visual artist Antony Gormley, Sidi Larbi directs a collective work; a chain reaction of elegant and synchronised movements in the construction of aesthetically powerful images.

With 21 dancers trained in classical dance as a base, the Ballet is currently one of the leading dance companies on the international scene and this show is a must-see.

Retrat en blanc

Com si les ales aportessin el camí, vers rere vers s’ha fet el llit de l’aigua. Era llavors que ens vam rendir sota magnòlies intenses a una apressada boira que oferia l’arrel més íntima dels tactes. Ella passava recordant les hores i als seus regolfs llençàvem vidres. De tots els hiverns, aquell que va allargar el festeig de les darreres gemmes, fou el més trist.

—Susanna Rafart

FROM 16 TO 26 MAR 2024—