Luminous

Luminous looks at the relationship that could exist between movements and light and between movements and sound. How does the body perceive, react and adapt based on the different information that the eyes communicate to us about space and its sound environment?

This questioning finds its expression in the scenic set-up of Luminous, which uses light and its reflections, resonance and reverberation, where each element acts on the other and creates a heterogeneous environment for the recipient, in this case the dancer.

Luminous, which comprises two parts, begins with a solo by Teshigawara who reproduces elements from his previous work, Light Behind Light.

Here, the dancer is immersed in a world of sound and light whose source is very low to begin with but perpetually multiplies and reflects. Teshigawara plays on shade and light and their varying intensity. Bodies appear then disappear, as if absorbed by the void, emptiness, nothingness. Stuart Jackson, a blind dancer who Teshigawara met during the workshops that he was directing in London during S.T.E.P. 2000 (Saburo Teshigawara Education Project), appears out of this void.

“Stuart Jackson was really afraid of moving. He rarely spoke or not at all. He couldn’t even manage to stand up really straight, and he was unable to learn Braille. He had been born blind, and all his capacities had remained stuck on the sidelines, as if they were hidden. Slowly but surely as we worked, I was astounded to discover his prepositions for dancing. Of course, his technique was limited, but he had got the gist of direction, angles, speed, turning, even jumps, and it was absolutely fascinating. This young man demonstrated amazing freedom, as if there was no right, no left, no in front and no behind. A dance saw the light of day, a new dance that incorporated an incredibly free relationship between the body and space, because it was free from any visual perception. Then, the young man began to express himself, to translate the emotion he felt being part of this immense space that surrounded him”, remembers the choreographer. Through his presence, the transition between the visible and the audible became palpable. Silence gave way to an austere audio composition that was soon accompanied by the words of the actor Vincent Guédon. Here, the body is totally controlled by the sound, which eventually sweeps through the space.

The second part opens with partitions and luminous bodies that appear out of the darkness. The light is not direct but reflected by the walls and the dancers themselves. It eventually gradually spreads throughout the space and creates a fantastic world that accentuates the reality of the movement and its speed, the light and the sound which, in the end, all become one.

Teshigawara begins his solo to music by Mozart. Only the dance and the bodies now exist on an open stage. The light, reduced to the strict minimum, emphasizes the quality of the body and the movement. Stuart Jackson joins in. It seems as if he is about to fade into the air, as if he was spreading his wings to take flight. No words, no gestures, just a duo based on trust and the space that they share. The true essence of Teshigawara’s dance is here.

Source : Maison de la Danse – programme