Le Bal Pendule

recorded at the CND 10 February 2011

« Suspended by an invisible thread to a stationary point above our heads, the ball swings, sways, wavers until it vacillates, blanks out, shies away under our feet. It is this vertiginous sensation of instability and doubt, between a moment suspended in weightlessness and an imminent loss of balance, that makes me seek support on its torso, on its hands. The slightest pressure of its body on mine and imbalance becomes a dance…

I wrote “Le bal pendule” as a metaphor of a human community that is filled with a multitude of postures, of operating processes and systems. An incredible chart of “manners”, of ways to behave, to behave vis-à-vis the other, to walk, to attach oneself, to position oneself. A complex game of relationships that spin the web of individual and collective stories; the ball goes beyond us and makes us swing between control and abandon, jubilation and sadness, seriousness and lightness. For this passage, five dancers, two men and three women, just like the usually higher number of women and what this creates. Peripheral points of tension, witnesses of stories that take place here, they wait… resolutely, impatiently, timidly to enter into the dance. »

Nadine Beaulieu

More information

Company website

Updating: October 2011