Rouge

Though its exact meaning is ambiguous, red is omnipotent because of the body positions, choreography, emotion and everything that we see and feel. This abstrusecolor plays on the paradoxes and expresses contradicting intense and passionate feelings.

Leitmotif: “everything is red”

The color, red, is obscure in this piece. It appears neither in the scenic elements nor in the costumes or within the lighting. Though its exact meaning is ambiguous, red is omnipotent because of the body positions, choreography, emotion and everything that we see and feel. This abstrusecolor plays on the paradoxes and expresses contradicting intense and passionate feelings. This color provokes passion, it is creative or paralyzing so it leaves no one indifferent, and this is where its power lies. Red is the centralized vehicle
for the idea of this work.

Supremacy of gesture

I wanted to rely on contemporary hip-hop dance techniques as I did on my previous works. The dancers chosen for this piece are seven virtuoso b-boy committed to hip-hop dance that is inspired by different styles. Some dancers have developed hybrid gestures through classical dance training and/or contemporary dance. The performers’ gestures and down rock styles are all different. The idea is to draw from the contrast between dancers to convey the meaning of piece. The history of each dancer, their singularity, their endowment,and their experience, all allow a transformation of the
ensemble and their dancing through emotions. It is actually the meaning of emotions that we seek through this creation. It is theorized through t
his work that, if hip-hop dance were a color, it would be red.

Musicality

Like our previous productions, this collaboration with the composer resulted in an original score that can be defined in the same way as the red color itself: eclectic and paradoxical. Spatialization by Fabrice Tison accompanies our production since Unstable it’s the key being the system of multidiffusion of sound. The intention is to create an original soundtrack
beyond the limits of conventional representation codes by getting away from the contact between the audience and the dancers on stage. This is to ensure that acoustic sources are arranged in various locations in the room to allow total impression of the public into the sound and thus accentuating the perception and emotions provoked by the music.
Fabrice Tison stated, “For me frontal emission of sound in a performance is unacceptable. Our ears are equipped with the ability to receive information from all directions but theater makes no use of it. Stereo is supplanting mono but both forms of audio projection remain frontal. It is unacceptable
to rest satisfied with ‘visible’ sound only. A listener in my opinion taught to perceive this single direction of sound. At concerts in theaters and especially in dance, we only hear what we see. It is unacceptable to reduce our omnidirectional perception of sound to nothing but frontal. It seems to me the right direction to wrap a listener in a natural acoustic ambiance and connect what is seen on stage with artistic interpretation of a musical piece. This has been my approach since my first experience with Yann Tiersen in 2003 in French arenas.Therefore we no longer hear what we see what we want to hear. The imagination and illusion conversing with reality and the vision in accord with hearing – this definitely is my approach”.

Organization in space

In my previous productions, I put a deliberate focus on the organization of space by choosing mobile scenography able to bring the performance space to life. In Rouge, dancers will mainly inhabit the scene in order to make room for body, movement, and dance. Unlike previous productions, I use a set design that does not take the form of “furniture” and will not be removable but I want it to allow redefining urban space poetically in line with our existing work. 

Source : Mickaël Le Mer