French dancer and choreographer Yoann Bourgeois uses devices that amplify physical phenomena and make perceptible the apogee point at which dance is balanced between control and fall. An exceptional acrobat and expert in the use of trampolines, Bourgeois founded an innovative and original style that fuses dance, circus and juggling.
When Bourgeois's dancers vault between the peak of flight and the abyss of collapse, they are expressing the most extraordinary thing that can be manifested: a perpetual potential, that is, a movement that has not yet been consummated between the two extremes of beginning and end and is translated into youth, a state of grace, poetry, an expression of an aesthetic in advance of reality and its meanings.
"I reached an age when I could imagine the inevitable contours of life, regardless of their reality, and talk about the future as if it were the past." - says Bourgeois - "This age was neither an objective threshold nor a temporal reality; but a growing awareness in time. [...] My idea was to defuse time."
"I decided to focus on the act, a particular format composed from multiple singularities, put from aside by the "traditional" circus and ignored by the "new" circus. The act involves extreme simplification to achieve maximum intensity with one goal: each act must exist in itself. [...] Every act I create seeks to reach a point of suspension at the intersection of two perceived and existing realities: physics, which defines matter and energy, and temporality, which shows an exact instant, a kind of absolute present. The intersection of these two fields opens a window to eternity."
The works presented to Spoleto65 are the result of the permanent creation process that Bourgeois calls Tentative approaches to to point of suspension. Five different performances, staged in three different locations, that can capture the allure of gravity by defying the forces of physics: in Hourvari, centrifugal force repels the performers' bodies as they try to resist it; Fugue/Table offers a multitude of theatrical situations in which the two characters each become the object of the other; Dialogue focuses on the concept of balance as a relationship in which the forces involved are equal, a metaphor for the interplay of forces present in every relationship; Fugue/Trampoline is a simplification of any existential trajectory along a staircase that leads from nowhere; Fugue/Balles is a dance in which Bach's music performed live shines through the juggling numbers.
Subscription July 2 at 10
at 10 - Cloister of San Nicolò
Hourvari & Fugue/Table
Dialogue
at 11 - Meeting Point Rocca - Monini Terrace
Fugue/Trampoline
at 12 - Church of St. Agatha
Fugue/Balles
Subscription July 2 at 18
at 18 - Church of St. Agatha
Fugue/Balles
at 19 - Cloister of San Nicolò
Hourvari & Fugue/Table
Dialogue
at 20 - Meeting point Rocca - Monini Terrace
Fugue/Trampoline
Subscription July 3 at 10
at 10 - Cloister of San Nicolò
Hourvari & Fugue/Table
Dialogue
at 11 - Meeting Point Rocca - Monini Terrace
Fugue/Trampoline
at 12 - Church of St. Agatha
Fugue/Balles
Born in 1981, Yoann Bourgeois is an internationally recognized artist who invests the fields of dance, theater, music, visual installations and the audiovisual industry. He thus breaks down barriers and creates to dialogue between approaches and artistic spaces.Between 2004 and 2006, he joined the National Center for Circus Arts in Châlons-en-Champagne, which he attended alternatively with the National Center for Contemporary Dance in Angers. He is the only student to have followed this double curriculum. There he met Alexandre Del Perugia who introduced him to to way of thinking about acting and Kitsou Dubois for research into weightlessness. He obtained his diploma in 2006. From 2006 to 2010, he worked alongside Maguy Marin as to permanent dancer at the Centre chorégraphique national in Rillieux-la-Pape.From 2008, every summer, he sets up "l'atelier du joueur", to nomadic space of research questioning the performing arts, by gathering around him artists from different artistic fields. From these collaborations was born the Compagnie Yoann Bourgeois in 2010. In July of the same year, the MC2-Grenoble invited him to invest the Fort de la Bastille: he created Cavale. The success is instantaneous. Yoann Bourgeois acquires to national reputation and becomes an associate artist of the MC2.He then began to first cycle of creation around great musical works to work on the "figure," to classic element of circus writing, in the manner of motifs. This new writing allows the circus to emancipate itself from the omnipotence of the "spectacular." From this cycle will come Les Fugues, small spectacular dances for to man and an object written precisely on J. S. Bach's Art of the Fugue. 2011 marks to turning point, Yoann Bourgeois produces The Art of Fugue, based on the work of J.S. Bach. This creation is widely acclaimed by the public and the press.The year 2013 is one of transition. Yoann Bourgeois initiates to new program of transmission of his pieces in professional circus schools. Convinced that circus artists must reappropriate their histories, this project, supported by the SACD, aims to reflect on the conditions of circus learning so that the emergence of to repertoire can take place.In 2014 Yoann Bourgeois asserts his particular interest in the body/force relationship as an endless source of drama. From this research will be born Celui qui tombe for the Biennale de la danse and Minuit at the Théâtre de la Ville. The real recognition of his work is here.In 2016, he was appointed director of the National Choreographic Center of Grenoble. He then became the first circus artist to direct to national institution dedicated to choreographic art.His work at the CCN2 is widely recognized for its ability to open up and share, to break down disciplinary, social and territorial barriers.In 2017, the Centre des Monuments Nationaux entrusted Yoann Bourgeois with the task of investing the Pantheon. This performance gave rise to to public and media acclaim. The New-York Times described him as to "dramatist of physics".The year 2018 is crucial. Dominique Hervieu entrusts Yoann Bourgeois with the grand finale of the parade of the 18th Biennale de la danse. He creates Passants with 25 amateurs of all ages. During this same biennial, Yoann Bourgeois invests the old Guimet museum and co-directs with Michel Reilhac, the first acrobatic work VR Fugue in virtual reality.Yoann Bourgeois has collaborated with prestigious companies such as the Nederlands Dans Theater or the Göteborg Opera. He has developed projects with internationally renowned artists such as Missy Elliot, Coldplay, Harry Styles and FKA Twigs.Yoann Bourgeois continues to expand his creative universe. He has initiated new collaborations most notably in the world of fashion, design or audiovisual.In perpetual renewal, he is currently working on imagining the first creative space in to sensitive natural space (SNE) that will combine poetic research and environmental awareness.
Luz Arcas / La Phármaco
Pina Bausch /
Germaine Acogny & Malou Airaudo
Blanca Li
Alexander Vantournhout/not standing
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