Audience reactions

(…) To emerge from the shadows, to move, to become visible, to be in the light, to return to the shadows, to disappear, to reappear. Flows. Back and forth. From darkness to light. From the inside of creation to the outside of its expression.

With each emergence, the form changes, the skin, the clothes, the face, the mask; the form of the flow changes as well, becoming softer and more supple, more violent and choppy. Sometimes the human form changes lanes, recognisable by the habit of physical signs, but above all by the individuality of a style, beyond the similarity of shapes and flows. Transformations (...).

The shapes change corridors as they iteratively plunge/emerge into/out of the dark, like passages from one communication channel to another, from one segment of space to another (...). Then the forms find themselves sharing the same corridor, where whole bodies merge, exchange parts, dissociate and recompose themselves.

During these processes, which are at once discontinuous and secretly articulated, differentiations are accentuated, in a gradual, incomplete way, with advances and retreats, taking, untaking, taking up again. Hair and breasts are uncovered, but the ambiguity remains.

Finally, there are moments when the forms come together in the light, in the space of the stage between the corridors and the auditorium. Where they mingle, interact, relate, dialogue. Sketches of links within the group. Fragile, suspended, but marking the beginning of the processes of their ever-shifting establishment...

Jean-Paul Matot, Psychanalyse.be / October 2022

 

In [Les Arrière-Mondes], the company embarks on a disturbing journey through space and time. Between black scrim curtains that create the impression of infinitely deep corridors, six dancers move to dissonant baroque sounds, rhythmic techno beats and deafening industrial sounds. To physically explore the relationship between the group and the individual, the production plays with puppet theatre means of connecting and fragmenting physical units. Several hands try to grasp a face like a spider, identically dressed twins question the setting of the same and different, the body of a dancer, only partially illuminated, disappears behind a face that shines out of the black and oscillates into a grimace.

The specific figurativeness of the dancers results in particular from the exuberant costumes, which have a decisive influence on body form and movement repertoire and vary from scene to scene, sometimes using face masks, metre-long fabrics and forms of body extensions and wigs. The rhythm is composed and the choreography given life to with masterly precision. The production evokes a wealth of associations that appears to be a ride through our cultural history and at the same time deals with wide-spread human fears and end-of-the-world feelings.

Jessica Hölzl, Die Aktuelle Kritik, Deutsches Forum für Figurentheater und Puppenspielkunst e.V. / June 2023