Somnole
choreography, interpretation: Boris Charmatz
choreographic assistant: Magali Caillet Gajan
lights: Yves Godin
costume collaboration: Marion Regnier
vocal work: Dalila Khatir with the advice of Bertrand Causse and Médéric Collignon
sound materials: J.S. Bach, A. Vivaldi, B. Eilish, The Pink Panther, J. Kosma, E. Morricone, birdsongs, G.F. Haendel, Stormy Weather…
production, distribution: TERRAIN with the support of Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels
co-production: Opéra de Lille – Théâtre Lyrique d’Intérêt National, le phénix - scène nationale de Valenciennes – pôle européen de création, Bonlieu - scène nationale d’Annecy, Charleroi Danse – Centre chorégraphique de Wallonie Bruxelles, Festival d’Automne in Paris, Festival de Marseille, Teatro Municipal do Porto, Helsinki Festival, Scène nationale d’Orléans, MC93 – Maison de la Culture de Seine-Saint-Denis, Pavillon ADC in Genève
with the support of: Lafayette Anticipations – Fondation d’entreprise Galeries Lafayette, program Atelier en residence, Jeune Théâtre National
duration: 59’
premiere: Opera in Lille, 2021
I love the idea that choreographic ideas come when you’re lying down
when you’re falling asleep
when you’re somnolent
I would love to do a somnolent solo
inspired by these states of latency and explore hibernation
and its end the undertow of daydreams and the scream of awakening
to explore the desire for passivity
and move around in sleep
in this solo I would like to make the work of the mind as visible as possible
let it be that which emerges
I wonder why I had never done a solo choreography
when I was little I practiced whistling during every recess
so as to imagine an entire whistled concert
I whistled mainly classical music
first I imagine an entirely whistled solo
made up of melodic reminiscences
and for once
I also imagine lights a first draft emergency exits lighting up one after another
a sort of drone flying overhead spotlights my movement
and probably a potent beam from backstage
backlighting that slants downward toward the audience
because, in the end, everything moves in their direction
Boris Charmatz
Dancer, choreographer, and creator of experimental projects like the ephemeral school Bocal, Musée de la danse or Terrain, Boris Charmatz looks for dance in unusual places. Keen to connect his questioning to the state of contemporary bodies, he creates hybrid shows and formats which, in a wide variety of spaces, combine creation and repertoire, theory and transmission. During 2009 – 2018, he was director of Dance Museum / National Choreographic Center de Rennes et de Bretagne. In 2019, he launches Terrain, association established in the Region Hauts-de-France, a project of choreographic experiments without walls or roofs, inserted into the city and the public space. Following studies at the Ballet School of the Paris Opera and Superior National Conservatory for Music and Dance in Lyon, together with Dimitri Chamblas he creates “À bras-le-corps” (1993). Pieces like “Aatt enen tionon” (1996), “enfant” (2011) created for the Avignon Festival, “10000 gestes” (2017) and “Somnole” (2021) wrote the history. “A bras-le-corps and 20 dancers for the XXth century” (2012) have entered the repertoire of the Paris Opera Ballet. Boris Charmatz is the author of several books, and is also a performer and improviser, notably with Odile Duboc, Médéric Collignon, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker and Tino Sehgal. His work is shown around the world, and has been the subject of retrospectives at MoMA in New York and Tate Modern in London. As part of the portrait devoted to him by the Festival d'Automne à Paris in 2021, he created “La Ronde” in the Nave of the Grand Palais before renovation, and “Happening Tempête” for the opening of the Grand Palais Ephémère. The same year, he opened the Manchester International Festival with “Sea Change”, a performance in a city street with 150 amateur and professional performers. In 2022, Charmatz took over as director of Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch. With Terrain, he is building a new artistic project between Germany and France, dedicated to the joint development of his choreographic work and Pina Bausch's repertoire. In 2023, he presented “Wundertal” a series of events in Wuppertal. He also created his first piece with the Ensemble, “Liberté Cathédrale”.
A Gentle and Masterful Charmatz!
© Danza e Danza
Boris Charmatz, darling of radical dance, was the week’s main attraction and his solo called “Somnole”, was also a meditation on sleep, or at least those boundaries between sleeping and waking when the body and mind take on a life of their own.
© The Guardian
Like a body seeking sleep, Charmatz invents a form of insomniac dance where hypnotic rhythms and gestures bring the audience to the frontier between wakefulness and sleep.
© TheaterMania
