Welcome to Paradise

Ils étaient les hommes et les femmes du sable, du vent, de la lumière, de la nuit. Ils étaient apparus, comme dans un rêve, enhaut d’une dune, comme s’ils étaient nés du ciel sans nuages, etqu’ils avaient dans leurs membres la dureté de l’espace.

“This duet was composed not long after the two dancer-choreographers  produced their first short films (‘La Chambre’ and ‘L’Étreinte’). If  their primary source is neo-realist Italian cinema, other references  show through, notably in the soundtrack, which reuses dialogue from Sam  Fuller’s films and ‘I Want to be Loved by You’ performed by Marylin  Monroe. But here, cinema is more than a reference, it is choreographic  material: the concept of the music soundtrack, lighting, linking of  sequences and effects contribute to create a film-like choreography.  With no set, and as props, just a bouquet of flowers and a rope – at  times a swing, at times possibly a rope around the neck – the the two  dancers (he in a dark jacket, she in a simple black dress and high heels  that are soon discarded) work their way through the range of feelings  that affect a couple: tenderness, sorrow, desire, ecstasy, submission,  escape. With a rare dramatic accuracy, entirely carried by their  physical presence, they polish the facets of a love affair – sensual and  cruel, anchored in the body – until they gleam. This duet between  hypnosis and vertigo is marked by a recurrent eddying motif. It ends in a  white cloud of talcum powder which both dancers throw into the air, a  ‘cloud of unknowing’ which descends as a halo around the image of their  crossed destinies.” 

Source: Dictionnaire de la danse, Philippe Le Moal, Ed Larousse, 1999