In this work by Marie Chouinard, the company’s ten dancers execute variations on the exercise of freedom. Often, the dancers appear on points: on one, two, and even four at a time. In a spectroscopy of the gesture, we also see them using different devices – crutches, rope, prostheses, horizontal bars, and harnesses – which at times liberate their movements, at others fetter it, and at still others create it.
This use of accessories gives rise to unusual bodily shapes and gestural dynamics and opens onto a universe of meticulous and playful explorations in which solos, duos, trios and group work, in their labour, pleasure and invention, echo the human condition.
An aesthete beyond norms, Marie Chouinard presents her ideas on the way the indefinableness of the Other and the flagrancy of Beauty brush up against one another through an interpretation of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Goldberg Variations. Subtle and extravagant, sumptuous and wild, the work’s movements plumb the insoluble mystery of the body, of the living being.
Ballet in two acts
Choreography and Artistic Direction | Marie Chouinard
Music | Louis Dufort: Variations on the Variations, Johann Sebastian Bach: Goldberg Variations, Variations 5, 6, 8, Vocal Extracts of Glenn Gould. With the permission of the estate of Glenn Gould and Sony BMG Music (Canada) Glenn Gould: A State of Wonder: The Complete Goldberg Variations (1955 & 1981)
Created at the Venice Biennale’s International Festival of Contemporary Dance, Italy, June 18, 2005*
A Compagnie Marie Chouinard production, co-produced with the National Arts Centre (Ottawa), Montreal High Lights Festival, Schlossfestspiele (Ludwigsburg), Théâtre de la Ville (Paris), Venice Biennale, White Bird (Portland), with the support of ImPulsTanz (Vienna)