Passants is a set designed show/installation which mixes dance, music and video. The presentation space is shared by the spectators, dancers, technicians and the musician. The ground is entirely covered with cardboard boxes, light bulbs hung from the ceiling give off a soft light, radios pour out their daily dose of news, mirrors placed here and there recall an intimate space, clothing hung off the walls seem to be displayed as if for sale. Video and Super 8mm images projected directly onto the walls or the sides of the boxes witnessing the improvisations performed by the dancers in the streets of Belsunce or the Havana over several months. Aware of the sound and visual aspects of the atmosphere, the spectators will let go, be brought forward and stopped by the dancers who insinuate themselves among them, approach until they almost touch them, move off, incongruous, strange and disturbing. Nothing is fixed, the spectator is thus an actor in his own right, free to place himself, to determine his own point of view, his own perspective.
Belsunce is not the theme of your project but the place where you danced, the place that you have shown, framed by your dance. Belsunce becomes the theatre of everyday gestures not only through the dance but through your impersonal presence, visible in the way passers-by walk as if unconsciously dancing, as a dance that is not dance, spontaneous, free, the dance of all people, crutches, children, women, the young, the looks and multiplicity of bodies in a district where the street is animated with an energy that cannot be found elsewhere.
Paul-Emmanuel Odin
Choreography Anne Le Batard and Jean-Antoine Bigot
Dancers Anne Le Batard, Jean-Antoine Bigot, Anne Reymann, Patrice de Benedetti, Lisa Da Boit
Music Patrice de Benedetti
Words Abdelkader Benazzouzi, Ahmed Chaïb, Idal and Christoph Schütz
Lighting Christophe Bruyas and Delphine Bonnefoi
Images Laurence Rebouillon, Anne Le Batard
Set design and costumes Ex Nihilo
Passants was created at 3bisF, a contemporary art space in Aix-en-Provence in 2004 Research supported by La Compagnie and Dansem
Co-produced by CCN Rillieux-La-Pape/Maguy Marin Company within the framework of the Accueil Studio 2004 ; L’Atelier 231, Centre National de Production des Arts de la Rue/Sotteville-lès-Rouen ; La Compagnie, Marseilles and Le Fourneau, Fabrique des Arts de la rue de Bretagne
Since 2004, Passants has been shown at Antipodes Festival, Brest ; La Minoterie, Marseilles ; Espace Albert Camus, Bron ; Festival a/d Werf, Utrecht, Holland 2004 ; Studio Kelemenis, Marseilles ; Festival ISTF, Gand, Belgium ; Mes de Danza, Seville, Spain ; L’Atelier 231/Sotteville-lès-Rouen ; Danse en Avril, Aubagne ; Densité, l’Athanor SN, Albi…
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Passants from Compagnie Ex Nihilo on Vimeo.