Square

Recorded at the CND 25 November 2016

In Square, on a bright green lawn, choreographer Bruno Benne reveals the very contemporary dimension of Baroque dance. Although for many years certain arts have attempted to render, with complete historic fidelity, extreme mathematical architecture both intelligible and perceptible, Bruno Benne, creating a surprising anachronism, by bringing together this old form of dance and a work of contemporary music, radically places Baroque art in a resolutely modern context. “Baroque dance, the first codified form of dance, cannot be divorced from its refined relationship to music, because it is structured to reveal the choreographic musicality that underpins the musical score. With Square, we are seeking to juxtapose this Baroque choreographic style with repetitive contemporary music in order to shed new light on it and show the clever modernity developed in the 18th century by the Dance Masters.”     

On stage, four Baroque musicians playing period instruments (violins, viola and theorbo) and four contemporary dancers, specialists in Baroque dance, perform a dance with a Baroque structure to minimalist music, exploring with great refinement but with a certain jubilation this burgeoning relationship between dance, space, and music.

Updating: January 2017