Les petites pièces de Berlin [solo]

Dominique Bagouet’s solo that he choreographed on the principle of accumulation and danced between each of the 5 small pieces that make up this work.

To begin with, here is a neutral and nameless place which could be a waiting room. Dance occupies time and place first temporarily. It does not narrate anything, but it sets out to make individuals and their meetings come into existence. If the main play of the show, the last one, was a canvas, it would first be approached through first sketches and enlarged details. In this way, some bodies and faces, as though observed from close up, can highlight the humanity, the “everydayness” and the possible connections between the performers. The first plays are more devoted to a more rational, intimate dance, designed with each dancer’s individuality confronted with few partners. The last play extends the image but the ‘wide-angle shot’ may just as well move things closer as separate them, and the dance moves away from details in order to become rough or crude, yet with tender and subtle angles also.

Sources: Dominique Bagouet – May 1988

It deals with five, non-narrative plays that could be interchangeable but for this vast setting which provides the basic idea:  a big waiting room with wall seats. There are clean stylistic breaks between each play with a common colour provided by the scenery, some costumes and hybrid accessories, some of them very cold, others much warmer. Characters are not archetypes; they are much more mysterious, rather surprising …

The place has determined the show. It is a narrow and small auditorium in Berlin where Peter Stein works at the moment. It is one of the rare stage places which have escaped the destruction of war. It is very typical of its time, with impressive inlaid walls.

The place is abstract but the dance becomes determined through the dancers’ preliminary improvisation work.

Sources: “Programme of the Bagouet Company” – 1988