La preuve par l'autre

Documentary on the production of ‘La Preuve par l’Autre’, a project put forward by Bouba Landrille Tchouda to Anne Nguyen and Farid Berki in order to confront, over a three-part piece, their different choreographic styles on a common theme: otherness.

For this production, Bouba Landrille Tchouda, artistic director of Compagnie Malka, requested the involvement of choreographers Anne Nguyen and Farid Berki, remarkable figures on the hip-hop scene. In collaboration with them, Bouba created a new dialogue and artistic adventure, whereby together they devised a rather unique plan: each of the choreographers would choose two performers, then create a choreographic act with the cast of six dancers around the common theme of otherness.

In this piece, the choreographers were encouraged to share their quest for meaning and a sense of self in relation to the other or to the collective, with the dancers and audiences. Here, one’s ‘own’ dance can fuel a vision, transcribe and transmit unique perceptions generated through encounters with these ‘others’; exceptional humans, immense territories to survey through intimate journeys. It is an ode to the discovery of what is imperceptible and unique; of the other.

Act 1: ‘Juste à l’entour’ – Bouba Landrille Tchouda 
How can I share the world of this ‘other’ who I do not know, how do I move forward with him? Maybe by somehow trying to ‘tame’ this other who isn’t me, this other who I also am, a part of me, just as erratic and unassimilated, on a quest for a personal identity. By attesting to some of these journeys in search of the other, believing we find them, attempting to circumscribe them in order to finally be able to dance with, and around them? Flows of force, movements of attraction, interactions between others and myself, myself and others, all of us interconnected?

Act 2: ‘Ton pied, mon pied, enfin presque…’ – Farid Berki 
One simple question: how can we find our place in someone else’s space? By confronting each other, fleeing each other, coming together and testing each other to the point of exhaustion in order to better find out what is so essential about the other, in order to better discover the other and finding their humanity. ‘ton pied, mon pied’ is an African expression that represents the force that brings two beings together into a couple, a way of saying ‘I’ll go wherever you go’. Berki aims to examine the question of the relational contract between two people.

Act 3: ‘i’ – Anne Nguyen 
The title ‘i’ is inspired by the ‘K’ of Kafka’s characters, the initial of the name or surname of people who are seeking to find their place in an environment that is leaving them behind. ‘i’ is also the first letter of the words ‘identity’ and ‘individual’, perhaps because it resembles a human standing up, head high, whose arms and legs are not represented. ‘i’ is an affirmation, a confrontation with the stranger’s gaze, but also an examination of the way in which we view the unique.