99 duos

In the piece 99 duos by Jean-Claude Gallotta, duets take on different forms. There are virtuoso duets performed by dancers from the company. There is video footage of couples made up of people just like you and me, projected onto a screen at the back of the stage. There are also short, poetic choreographies, based on everyday gestures, performed on stage by amateur dancers whom the choreographer refers to as ‘interveners’. We do not wish simply to film these duets as they are, but rather to draw out their story in abstract or realistic environments, far removed from the theatre. We will escape from the stage in order to create new spaces where cinema will invite us to take a second look at them. The video projections of the couples are an invitation to enter reality. We will also relocate the couples of interveners into everyday environments, for example in a street on a busy day or in a park. In this way, our wish is always to experiment with the idea of duality, and to add to it. We will progressively create a parallel between these ‘real’ couples and the virtuoso choreographed duets of the dancers. We will film the selected choreographed sequences simultaneously, in a specially created space where each duet will be associated with its own visual and sound backdrop, while brushing up against the others due to the ability to play with depth of field. Going from the very distant to the very close, from the immense to the minute, from hot to cold…
In this way, this film will not be a replica of excerpts from the performance, but will rather be a new take on it from a cinematic point of view, lasting 26 minutes, during which the essence of the performance will remain: the idea of the duet or the couple as an entity with the potential for an infinite number of combinations.
The excerpts from the performance which we have chosen to film are:
– the variations performed by the five couples of interveners,
– the four duets performed by the dancers,
– an excerpt from the main sequence of the performance (during which all dancers enter and exit the stage in flesh-coloured costumes).
The film’s soundtrack will be based on the original music used for the performance, by the group Strigall.

Source: Catherine Maximoff and Dominique Thiel