Kernel (2007)

Casting & credits

Choreography Cindy Van Acker Interpretation Tamara Bacci, Perrine Valli, Cindy Van Acker Sound creation Mika Vainio / live music on stage Light Luc Gendroz, Philip May Sound direction Denis Rollet Costumes Aline Courvoisier Technical production Marie Szersnovicz Duration 75 min Creation June 2007, Théâtre du Grütli, Geneva Production Cie Greffe Coproduction Théâtre du Grütli, Geneva Workspaces ADC studios, Geneva With the support of Département des Affaires Culturelles de la Ville de Genève (DAC), Département de l’Instruction publique de l’Etat de Genève (DIP), Pro Helvetia - Swiss Arts Council, Loterie Romande, Sophie and Karl Binding Foundation Administration and diffusion Tutu Production

About

In 2005, Cindy Van Acker created Pneuma, a dance show for eight dancers with a rare quality of movement, a sense of space that would move your body and your head, and a dizzying sense of minimalism. Pneuma, with its slowness and bodies riveted to the floor, was a kind of climax to the three solos created since 2002. Now, two years later, it is Kernel. And change is in the air. Of course, the sensuality of movement remains: that unique characteristic that sees any movement by the choreographer and dancer touch the barely fathomable dimension that is space. And, as in Pneuma, she has succeeded in infecting her dancers with this quality. Yet, something has indeed changed because Van Acker and her two dancers are on their feet.

“For years, I’ve been trying to stand on my own two feet. At last, I’m succeeding.” She admits her fear of verticality, like an apprehension about tearing up space. Vertically, the three dancers move with all the gentleness, finesse, and precision in the world. The three of them form a triangle, each at its own vertex, at whatever angle the audience/viewers decide. The distance between them is perfect. They are strongly connected to each other, yet remain autonomous. Free. They respond to each other while following their own line. Between these three, the best that human beings can dream of is played out: complicity, respect, playfulness, independence. Little glances, slight smiles, concentration, they copy each other, motivate each other, and drive each other, slightly out of step, but in symbiosis. It is a women’s choir. The second novelty is that the rhythm can be interrupted, stopped, or accelerated. The dance is no longer just a slow process. And while the score may be highly written and absolutely meticulous, it also plays with a less regimented, more rounded quality. The astonishing intimacy that emanates from the movement remains. Even when the beat swells, it becomes noise, it rumbles. because the sound composition does not hesitate. It is industrial: construction sites, war zones, torrential rain, urban sounds. But also silence and calm. Tarkovsky is not far away. The relationship that develops between the silent determination of the three women and the sound artist is perhaps universal, because it is contradictory, paradoxical, and stubborn. Here, hands, wrists, necks, and arms coil. There, the bodies outline drawings in space, giving a sense of immensity thanks to the arms or legs that launch vanishing lines towards infinity. Further on, there is a strange six-limbed organic monster, half beast, half machine. And always this grace, this infinite grace. – Kernel, a women’s choir by Caroline Coutau

Images

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