[Festival de Marseille 2022] Aina Alegre, Marlene Monteiro Freitas and Compagnie l’Autre Maison
Second stopover at the 2022 edition of the abundant Marseille festival, rich in proposals that upset and question. The opportunity to discover RAUXAthe intense solo of the dancer and choreographer Aina Alegre that we missed during the 2021 edition of June Events. Also catch-up session for Mal – Embriaguez Divinathe room of Marlene Monteiro Freitas to the unbridled expressionism that upsets everything in its path presented at the last Autumn Festival. To finish, Paradethe creation of the company L’Autre Maison based in Marseille, which delivered its festive message of a dancing community associating differences.
With its very singular requirement, Aina Alegre to propose RAUXA a solo with a very sophisticated outline. The play with the light gives a singular relief to this work around the very hammered movement at times, softer at others. Throughout the room, the lights of John Fedinger offers it a setting full of contrasts: sometimes in harsh light, sometimes in an orange penumbra similar to a sandstorm. In this moving landscape where the sound proposal also contributes to give a polymorphic atmosphere, the dancer with beautiful lines engages in an impressive dissection of mobility. No minute of respite in what resembles an indefatigable exploration of rhythm.
Regularly, she applies herself to drawing endless spirals, producing a hypnotic effect that is both fascinating and euphoric. In this pentagon drawn on the ground designed by James Brandy which becomes her playground from which she hardly extricates herself, Aina Alegre hits the ground, pushes the void away with his arms while the music seems to be in unison with his heartbeat. In the end, it is no longer a woman who makes herself heard in the force by knocking on the ground, it is an “extra-terrestrial” dancer who seems at the end of the piece to have abandoned her body to access to a cosmic dimension.
Marlene Monteiro Freitas is an artist who has more than her place in a such lush programming than that of the Marseille festival. His last piece Mal, embriague divina, which has already toured a lot, can be likened to a choreographic and dramatic tornado. What a surprise also to discover her on stage as she sends heavy! No performer in the cast is left out. This 1h55 piece does not support half measures. Each in his own way is impressive in the place he or she occupies in this choreographic pamphlet on the intoxication of power (among other things), breathtaking and hyper original.
The Cape Verdean choreographer bets on excess. She delights in every grimace, outrage or exaggeratedly underlined gesture.. Everything must end upside down in this mock parliament or court, where the human being is only the victim of an absurd system that overwhelms and swallows him up. Nothing is left to chance in this staging that turns crazy, where each performer seeks to push the excitement even further. And, despite a few drops in speed, nothing is free, everything makes sense as you go that this gigantic masquerade unfolds. It’s sometimes too much but never off the mark, extremely imaginative and delirious. Moments remain that leave a lasting mark on the retina, such as this reinterpretation of Swan Lake in which the nine artists take flight with irresistible oddity. The signature of a great choreographer.
But who are these eighteen performers who take over the KLAP-Maison stage for the dance on this June afternoon? People from diverse backgrounds united by a communicative and invigorating desire to dance. Of Paradethis famous collective work for the Ballets Russes written by Cocteauchoreographed by Leonide Massine and scenography by picassoto music by Satiethe choreographer Andrew Graham a choice of storage the festive and demonstrative aspect. But also avant-garde. A parade open to all modes of expression. In an astonishing bubbling of energies, bodily states and sensitivities, men, women, children, amateurs and professionals, so-called “valid” and disabled, rub shoulders.
Aggregating their differences, this atypical company forms a human chain that unfolds with a joyful vivacity associated with an ingenious scenic device. “Surprise me“, Diaghilev had asked Cocteau. More than a century later, these eighteen performers illustrate the challenge by exploring with great inventiveness all the ways to unite on stage. All of them astonish, overwhelm, move by their confidence, their ability to listen to others, their creativity. There is nothing exhibitionist about this parade. With modesty, delicacy but also extravagance, she highlights the strength of the collective. “Have fun“, without a doubt Andrew Graham to its performers. They and they seem to have listened!
RAUXA by and with Aina Alegre.
Evil, gear up divina by Marlene Monteiro Freitas with Flora Détraz, Henri “Cookie” Lesguillier, Joãozinho da Costa, Kyle Scheurich, Mariana Tembe, Marlene Monteiro Freitas, Miguel Filipe, Tomas Moital. La Criée, National Theater of Marseille. Wednesday June 22, 2022.
Parade by Andre Graham. Directed by: Andrew Graham, Béatrice Pedraza. With Elise Argaud, Noé Argaud, Breno Angelo, David Aubert, Agnès Cavin, Maëlle Cavin, Jean Codo, Alia Coisman, Mathilde Hannoun, Ramzya Katuf-Hasan, Inès Kerkeni, Muriel Mifsud, Pétronille Poirot-Bourdain, Jérôme Poncet, Greta Sandon, Anne-Gaëlle Thiriot, Coralie Viudes. KLAP House for dancing. Friday June 24, 2022.
The Marseille Festival continues for a few more days until July 9, 2022.