Whales

Dance & performance

45 min.

29.05.2022

Sunday

19:30

CNDB "Stere Popescu” hall (Mărășești, 80-82)

Tickets

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Info

Whale songs fascinate us as much as they inspire us. These ancestral sounds seem to be able to distort time, to immerse us in a state of introspection in which the interior space becomes huge and dense. The Whales piece is defined as an immersive viewer experience and it approaches movement as a call to the other, creating a certain magnetism between bodies. The purpose here is to draw attention to these songs and to reveal their mesmerizing and transforming power.

The meeting with the Professor of bioacoustics Olivier Adam made possible the collection of recordings of whale songs, and this sound repertoire became the basis from which the language of movement begins. The body is immersed in these sounds that will soon remain only as a recollection, and becomes an archive that records and contains their memory. Language emerges from listening to and studying these songs, seeking to translate an atmosphere, an experience, and to generate a movement-based composition system.

In this work, the body is seen as a receiver and at the same time a transmitter of sound waves from whale songs, and listening is seen as the ingestion of sound that causes behaviour and choreographic language. Sound comes to serve the relationship and dialogue between the bodies of the performers, but also creates a direct connection with the bodies of the spectators immersed simultaneously in the same sound environment.

Hypnotizing, these ancestral voices seem to be able to distort time, to plunge us into a state of introspection in which the inner space becomes huge and dense. As in a ritual, time expands and the bodies meet in a process of spatial and rhythmic changing phase, and alternate tirelessly in search of an ephemeral agreement.

Whales wants to arouse the curiosity towards these beings and the transforming power of their song as an essential and necessary perspective in today’s world. The performance focuses on building common identities, behaviours, and language. Listening and empathy come to serve interactivity and the ability to instantly compose together. The show focuses on this ephemeral search for balance.

Choreography: Rebecca Journo (FR)
Created in collaboration with: Véronique Lemonnier, Chloé Zamboni & Lauren Lecrique
Performance: Véronique Lemonnier, Lauren Lecrique & Rebecca Journo
Sound creation: Mathieu Bonnafous
Light design: Gildas Goujet

Biography
Rebecca Journo is a dancer and choreographer from Paris. Through her practice, she explores a choreographic language in which movement materializes the connection between body, imagination and sound.
A graduate of the Trinity Laban Conservatory in London in July 2015, Journo has performed on various projects in Switzerland, Belgium and France, along with companies and artists such as the Brokentalkers, the Konzert Bern Theater, Tabea Martin and Michele Murray. In 2018, together with Véronique Lemonnier, she founded the company La Pieuvre. Their artistic line of work is at the intersection of dance, entertainment, music and photography.
With “La Pieuvre”, Journo created the pieces L’Épouse (2018), La Ménagère (2019) and Whales (2020). At the border between writing and improvisation, Journo created a personal approach to choreography by exploring movement at a micro level to invite the viewer into the living body. Journo is working closely with the emerging Danse Dense choreography platform from 2018, also received support from Les Petites Scènes Ouvertes in 2019, as well as funding for emerging talent from the Île-de-France (FORTE) region in 2020. In 2021, Rebecca Journo begins research and production of Portrait (working title), a quartet that will premiere in 2022.

The event is presented with the support of the French Institute through Relance Export 2022 program.

Produced by
Collectif La Pieuvre

Collectif La Pieuvre is supported by Danse Dense, le Collectif 12 and cie K622 – Mié Coquempot

Co-produced by
Danse Dense, Les petites scènes ouvertes, L’Échangeur – CDCN Hauts-de-France

With support from
Ville de paris, DRAC Ile-de-France, Centre culturel Houdremont, Collectif 12, Maison Populaire de Montreuil, Réservoir Danse, CCN de Rennes, Emmetrop, Egomio, L’échangeur – CDCN Hauts-de-France, Théâtre Louis Aragon à Tremblay, L’Etoile du nord

Thanks
Teatrelli & Creart – Bucharest Center for Art and Traditions for technical support.