Yama

Yama is the mysterious metaphor for a collective ascension, where the costumes by Jean-Paul Lespagnard reinvent pagan fertility rites.

It was at the invitation of the Scottish Dance Theatre that in 2014 Damien Jalet created the spectacle Yama, in a set by the American plastic artist Jim Hodges, on an original Winter Family composition. Yama (which means mountain in Japanese) draws its inspiration from archaic, pagan and animistic rituals. In particular, those who practiced Yamabushi, monks whose rites are perpetuated in the sacred mountains of Tohoku. For them, the mountain is the original matrix. Damien Jalet draws from this a visceral, energetic dance that harks back to the sources of a humanity that has still not broken away from the animal or plant world, but aspires to elevation.

The music rumbles, discovering in the ochres of an arid land, an eye, a dark mouth or a black hole leading to the bowels of the earth. There appears a bustle of legs, arms and chests that, in a hypnotic gesture, cause just as many mandibles, antennae and elytra to appear, plunging us into the mystery of the pupal stage of metamorphosis. The dance is organic, almost shamanic and takes us into the great cycle of transformations. Soon, this primitive, haunting, eruptive and enigmatic festival causes original chaos to surge forth, which finally returns to its initial obscurity.

Credits

French premiere – Created in 2014

Director : Fleur DarkinChoreography : Damien Jalet Choreography’s Assistant : Emilios ArapoglouAssistant : Meytal BlanaruDirector of repetition : Naomi MurrayMusic : Winter FamilyMusical additions : Gabriele MiracleScenography : Jim HodgesLight : Emma JonesCostumes : Jean-Paul LespagnardCostumes’s Assistant : Léa CapisanoTime : 55 min