Without References (2021)

Casting & credits

Concept and choreography Cindy Van Acker in collaboration with the dancers With Stéphanie Bayle, Matthieu Chayrigues, Louis-Clément Da Costa, Aurélien Dougé, Sonia Garcia, Paul Girard, Yuta Ishikawa, Lisa Laurent (alternating), Maya Masse, Anna Massoni, Philippe Renard, Daniela Zaghini Scenography Romeo Castellucci Light Victor Roy Sound and technical direction Fanny Gaudin Music goat (jp) Costumes Marie Artamonoff, with the support of Suzanne Fischer and Ingrid Moberg Artistic collaboration Maud Blandel Scenography assistant Victor Roy Set construction Ateliers de la Comédie de Genève Lighting control Julien Perret Duration 1h35 Administration Cindy Janiaud Production Cindy Janiaud and Olivier Stora Diffusion Olivier Stora Mediation Stéphanie Bayle Production Cie Greffe With the support of the Fondation d'entreprise Hermès as part of its New Settings programme Coproduction Comédie de Genève, MC93 - Maison de la Culture de Seine-Saint-Denis, Concertgebouw Brugge, ICI - Centre chorégraphique national Montpellier - Occitanie, Centre chorégraphique national de Caen en Normandie, Theater Freiburg Thanks Danièle Chaperon, Aurélien Gschwind, Yassine Harrada, Muriel Kübler, Stéphanie Lugon, Isabelle Pellissier, Jonas Beaussire, Fanette Doublet, Agnès Alberganti, Rita Salamin, Karine Papilloud, Vittoria Calabretto Lomascolo

Compagnie Greffe benefits from a joint support agreement between the City of Geneva, the Republic and Canton of Geneva, and Pro Helvetia – Swiss Arts Council for the period 2021-2023.

About

Without references develops a dramaturgy questioning the plurality of forms and durations that trace and leave traces. The choreographer gives herself the means of a radical show where the dance takes shape in the course of the scenes, of the cinematographic plans, invested by eleven interpreters, on the percussive and purified music of the Japanese group GOAT, and in a scenography of the director Romeo Castellucci, which could project us in a waiting room, a hall of station, or an installation of the 50s.

Immediateness does not exist. Our environment reflects light and sends an information to our brain which takes a few milliseconds for it to decode, that's what we call seeing; but, because of this minuscule cognitive period, we see only the signs of a near past, of an ever prior state of the world. For the human being, reality is always a trace.

The question of “making trace” requires a global and interactionist thinking of dramaturgical languages : body, movement, light, music and space are all active principles. The space keeps track of human activity in the short and long term, as those trenches that still streak the conflict zones years after the last shots were fired. The body becomes a palimpsest of its own existence when scars are drawn up and disappear there. The light of red embers still evokes a fire for a long time and that of a projector can erase some more subtle bioluminescences such as the ones of fireflies. The movement of the dancer may be a mark or even a hieroglyph of a language yet to be invented, the audience of which will grasp the imprint.

Without references is a performance willing to resist the illusion of immediacy and, at the very heart if its work process, to leave behind as many singular traces. To this end, Cindy Van Acker has chosen to work a solo, with each of the dancers, which is part of the final project: they are the Shadowpieces, as many metamorphic shadows that spring from Without references as if a projector was beaming on the performance. The choreographer thus proposes a real work of construction by subtraction: none of the solos appear in the piece, but all constitute a work up-front, the elaboration of a language and methodology specific to each dancer, which lays the groundwork for his presence in Without references. In the process of Cindy Van Acker, nothing is left to chance.