Pléïades, in absentia (2026)

In this music piece organised as four different weathers, five remarkable dancers circulate through the score with freedom and precision. Dance beats the most extreme rhythms but also slows down, sets some suspensions and silences ; it zooms on the tiniest point, on fingertips, or back on larger landscapes, on group and swarm effects. Frontality radiates then throughout the space : the orientation of the bodies, of the heads, of the dancers’ walks. The virtuosity of dance is everywhere, but it never shows off. It circulates. It is always already somewhere else. Fleeting. Playful. Joyous.

The at-sight performance of the six percussionists of Eklekto Ensemble, artisans of the open sky, becomes a choreography in itself. Their strikes trace trajectories, their sticks are an extension of their bodies, their silences suspend the space-time : a circulation from images to sounds and back to images which comes to upset our senses. In Pléïades, in absentia there is a rare generosity. Something deeply soothing despite the extreme complexity of Xenakis’ work. Indeed, choreography and lighting do not try to show nor to translate the impacts, the resonances, the effects of phasing or the polyrhythmics that are typical of this score. They simply invent a scenic context. Where these can happen, get embodied, breathe. We re-emerge from this magnetic journey with the feeling of not having just understood or listened to a music, but rather of having been invited to inhabit it. — mp