The Spirit of Swing

Swing can’t be explained, it has to be felt, experienced and appropriated. It’s an animal that’s much easier to describe than to define. The spirit of swing lies deep within us. It is the beginning of all life… the heartbeat that is both common and unique. This is how you become swing. Beyond these preconceived images, this common heritage, swing is a psychology, a philosophy. It is the link between two cultures. It’s a life force that allows each of us to express ourselves in our own unique way. It’s not just a surface varnish, it’s not entertainment to be taken lightly. Swing is both an individual and collective construction, choreographic and musical. It is three-dimensional and uncompromising. It is elusive… It links different communities, Afro-American, European and African. It is speed, despair, joy, complexity and otherness. It is human… because it brings people together, it converges.

Like two inseparable notions, like black and white, day and night… Swing makes you dance and dancing generates swing. It’s a unifying force! In this work, the body is superimposed on the original, contemporary musical score. Paying homage to its journey through time, through different modes and states of body, taking in what it has been, what it is today in our time and what it could be tomorrow, the artists of Compagnie PGK will take the audience on a journey, an experiment in search of The Spirit of Swing.