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JESTS | Teaser

6 dancers — 1h — 2021

JESTS | Teaser

6 dancers — 1h — 2021

FACÉTIES

"JESTS is an exploration. A journey free from any preconceived ideas, in search of what can make one smile instinctively, without thought, speech or imagination being summoned. Only the body and its movement come into play.

This purely formal search for a gesture prompting our laughter immediately raises the question of the norm and of the gap : an aesthetic question, but also a social and philosophical one, since it brings into play our representations of how, as a group, accept difference.

The small and strange community gathered on stage questions the meaning we give to our existence. Wandering in a world whose logic slips away and is turned upside down, these quirky characters perform acts whose stakes are incomprehensible to us. But they do so with a form of certainty - be it because these acts have a purpose, or because their perpetrators are seeking no other aim than to be there, experiencing all the possibilities of the moment.

Being in the world without thinking that you are mastering it."


Véronique Sternberg — Dramaturgic collaborator

Ben Aïm, Christian & François

For more than twenty years, Christian and François BEN AÏM have been building a work rich of poetry and high standards, fraternal bond and singularity.

At the end of a multidisciplinary training combining dance, physical theater and circus, each one follows his path as a performer, then the two brothers meet to create À l’abri du regard des hommes, avant d’aller mourir ailleurs, a hybrid dance-theater piece which marks the beginning of their collaboration in 1997. Twenty pieces will follow which anchor their fieldwork as much as they travel internationally. They draw their inspiration from literary, musical and pictorial sources, and intimately mixing artistic disciplines on the stage : En plein coeur (2006), Valse (2010), The Ogresse on archives and her dog (2011), Lightness of Storms (2014), Burn, rebellious hearts (2017), Mirages — boreal souls (2018), Arise (2019), JESTS (2021).

Marked by an uncompromising energy, summoning the performer to an intimate relationship with movement, the dance of the BEN AÏM brothers offers, beyond a speech, an experience, a "crossing" that the dancer performs in front of our eyes, that he lives each time with the sincerity of a full and entire presence.

With this demanding writing comes an art of composition which gives birth to the stage an imagination borrowing from dreams, from the marvelous of the tale and from invisible realities. Through a subtle effect of empathy, the audience enters an unstable world, where everything is the object of poetic questioning - a world to be experienced together.


 

Calendar of creations


 

2021

JESTS

2019

Snapshots - A series femal solos

Arise

2018

Mirages — Boreal souls

2017

Brûlent nos coeurs insoumis (Burn, rebellious hearts)

2016

Peuplé, dépeuplé (Inhabited, uninhabited)

2014

La légèreté des tempêtes

2013

La forêt ébouriffée (The Dense Forest)

L'orée des visages

Karma

2011

L'Ogresse des archives et son chien

2010

Valse en trois temps

Résistance au droit

2008

Louves

Amor fati fati amor

2007

You're a bird, now!

2006

En plein coeur

2004

Carcasses, un oeil pour deux

2003

Ne vous fiez pas au titre, il peut encore changer

2001

Ô my brother !

La Frontera

1999

Un homme en marche

L'enfant du miroir

1998

L'homme rapaillé

1997

A l'abri du regard des hommes, avant d'aller mourir ailleurs

Cavallari, Claudio

He obtained his degree in Cinema at Turin University in 2003. Since 1999, he has produced a number of experimental and fiction short films, which have received awards in several festivals.

During these years, he collaborated with avant-garde theatre and dance companies in Italy as well as in France and Switzerland and, in this context, produced video installations for shows.

The production techniques of his films often vary according to the project. He thus moves from clips to documentaries and from fiction to animation.

His work is geared towards pictorial research and for roughly the last 5 years he has specialised in the creation of “living frescos”. He thus collaborated with Eve Ramboz for the creation of the images for Blanca Li’s show Le Jardin des délices. Following this, he collaborated with Les Petits Français for the creation of frescos for a number of monumental projection shows, in Mexico and in Chile, even retracing the history of Russian painting for the Moscow Festival of Lights in 2012. 

After having produced a fresco for Laurent Pelly’s staging of the opera Robert le Diable, for the Royal Opera House, London, in 2013 he collaborated in the creation of the images for Mylène Farmer’s last world tour.

He also collaborates regularly with the Centre Chorégraphique National de Créteil and its director Mourad Merzouki.

For the past 12 years he has been living and working in Paris, where he is the artistic director of Lumina, with Fabrizio Scapin.


Source : Vimeo

Equipe artiqtique

Artistic direction / Conception : Christian et François Ben Aïm

Artistic direction assistance / Conception : Jessica Fouché

Choreography : Christian et François Ben Aïm

Interpretation : Christian Ben Aïm, Johan Bichot, Chiara Corbetta, Thibaut Eiferman, Marie Lévénez, Emilio Urbina

Artistic consultancy / Dramaturgy : Véronique Sternberg

Set design : Camille Duchemin

Original music : Nicolas Deutsch

Lights : Laurent Patissier

Costumes : Maud Heintz

Technical direction : Stéphane Holvêque

Production / Coproduction of the choreographic work : Coproductions — Escher Theater (Luxembourg), Le Trident, Scène nationale de Cherbourg-en-Cotentin (50), Théâtre de Châtillon (92), Théâtre des Bergeries de Noisy-le-Sec (93), accueil studio de VIADANSE - CCN Bourgogne Franche-Comté à Belfort (90), La Commanderie – Mission danse de Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (78), Le Perreux-sur-Marne (94), Plateaux du Groupe Geste(s) / Lauréat 2020. Coproduction et résidence de création — Le Théâtre, Scène nationale de Mâcon Val de Saône (71). Aide à la résidence de création — Le Trident, Scène nationale de Cherbourg-en-Cotentin (50). Soutiens — SPEDIDAM, Région Île-de-France, Adami, Centre des bords de Marne, Arts Vivants en Vaucluse – Centre départemental de Rasteau (84), Théâtre Chevilly–Larue André Malraux (94). Mise à disposition de studios — Théâtre des Bergeries de Noisy-le-Sec (93), La Briqueterie CDCN du Val-de-Marne (94), CCN de Créteil et du Val-de-Marne / Compagnie Käfig (94), Conservatoire intercommunal de Malakoff (92), Micadanses (75), LE CENTQUATRE-PARIS (75).

Duration : 1h

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