Stance II

“Stance II”, Catherine Diverrès’ last solo, was written in 1997 and based on “La Terra di Lavoro”, a text by Pier Paolo Pasolini

“Stance II”, Catherine Diverrès’ last solo, was written in 1997 and based on “La Terra di Lavoro”, a text by Pier Paolo Pasolini. After transmitting it once in 2001, it was performed again this year by Carole Gomes, who has danced almost all her works since 1996. So, onstage we see a lone dancer, barefoot and dressed in black, while Pasolini recites his text and the cello plays and rumbles in the background. The space opens, carved up by the lights and the shadows created by Marie-Christine Soma, which create an intense, melancholy universe. And the movements develop, broad, sculptural, mixing expressionism and abstraction. “Stance”, etymologically, means a poetic form. And it is this that the solo created by Catherine Diverrès invites us on: a voyage which has grace, of the gliding steps on stage, of the undulation of the arms, of the refinement of the gestures. An interior voyage which also involves the mental space of the spectator, who uses the fullness as much as the emptiness: “stance” also comes from Italian “stanza”, which means “remain/resting place” because there must be a complete meaning and a rest at the end of each stanza. A dark presence, luminous in her movement, Carole Gomes invites us to a mysterious ceremony, which calls as much on the forces of life as on the abyss which threatens us, inhabited by a deep inwardness. The dance unfolds, stripped bare, in the shadow of the black sun of melancholy.

Source: Rencontres chorégraphiques internationales de Seine-Saint-Denis (International choreography encounters of Seine-Saint-Denis)

Updating: May 2012