La Création du monde 1923-2012

La pièce intégre, à la manière d’une citation, la version originale du ballet, remontée par Millicent Hodson et Kenneth Archer, mais nous propose avant tout une mise en perspective avec le parcours et le regard de Faustin Linyekula. Fabienne Arvers

Congo, Uganda, Rwanda, Kenya, South Africa, France… Faustin Linyekula is a traveling artist … through space, but also through time. His new show gives a second life to La Création du monde, a ballet created in 1923 at the Theâtre des Champs-Elysees by a remarkable team of artists: Darius  Milhaud for the music, Blaise Cendrars for the libretto, Fernand Léger  for the décor and Jean Börlin for the choreography.

Perceived at the time as a “negro-cubist fantasy”, this historic work  looks towards Africa more in terms of its highly coloured costumes and  its exotic sounds than to its terrible political context.

With 25 dancers from the Lorraine Ballet and eminent artistic  partners such as the musician Fabrizio Cassol (heard with Alain Platel  and Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker), Faustin Linyekula takes on La Création du monde  with the intention of placing it within a new perspective. The  Congolese choreographer has no equal for the way in which he jarringly  juxtaposes tradition and modernity. With him, memory is no longer  content to commemorate; it regenerates from top to bottom, with a  healthy dose of extravagance.

Source: Lille Opera