A Very Eye

Creation 2022

Premiere – 4th – 8th October 2022 at les Brigittines
Brussels (Belgium)

From which perspective are we talking ? Under what light and from which reality ?
A reality, that never ceases to become an other.

 

The individual being is plural and always about to become. Indissociable from their own kinds, and circulating in an environment in action, they are both a space in movement, as well as the distance between that space and another. They are relation.

Inspired by the diversity of collective behaviors, to be found at profusion in the realms of life, A Very Eye is a piece that invites us to change perspectives, and to shed light on the interstices. Throughout the entire performance, the audience and the dancers are sharing the same space, a white carpeted floor, where they meet, wander and merge trajectories. Jointly they trace the shifting lines of a territory to be inhabited. Out of this constant negotiation of space and distance, complex scores of intertwined movements emerge, like the weaving of a DNA in perpetual reconstruction.

 

A Very Eye is created and performed by six dancers (including Jeanne Colin, Tsharly Prince, Mona Felah, Christine Daigle, Micaël Florentz and Angela Rabaglio), accompanied by the warm and vibrant creation of the light designer Arnaud Gerniers, the original musical composition by Anne Lepère and the costume design of Mélanie Duchanoy.

Press

“A Very Eye begins in the most beautiful way possible: with an absence, with a withdrawal, which reveals a presence, producing an unexpected ballet. (…)
By its strange luminosity, like the last fires of a world inducing the intuition of an irreparable loss, by its deceptive repetition as fascinating as it is hypnotic, by its varied speeds accommodating the differences of luminous states, A Very Eye projects us into a sensitive and rare experience of seeing: how in certain optical conditions, fleeting movements can show persistence, how the retinal persistence of images can generate sorts of residual traces in vision like so many blows of overlapping brushes creating these crossfades. The dance here embroiders its tapestry in a prodigious and subtle deployment of moiré effects. And we are overwhelmed with a rare emotion in front of a living, sumptuous work of eternal youth, summoning both the primitive beauty of a dance painted by Botticelli and the modern splendor of video artist Bill Viola.”

Nicolas Thevenot, Un fauteuil pour l’orchestre, 19.06.23

 

“In The Gyre, the same pattern of footsteps made the duo move around a central axis from which they never deviated. We find in A Very Eye this principle but extended to the six performers. From a common pattern of movement, such as electrons or elementary particles rotating and crossing around an invisible nucleus, they brush against each other or dodge each other, hold or touch each other in multiple variations. They do not take their eyes off each other, absorbed by the same perpetual movement regulated by the line. The choreographic composition is like a decorative motif living to the rhythm of contraction and expansion driven by the performers. The spaces between the bodies are as important as the design of the composition. It is between these interstitial spaces that the drawing of the motif can be traced. Minimal, geometric and organic, A Very Eye reveals all the sensuality of the body in a totally hypnotic immersive choreography.”

Filip Forestier, avoiretadanser.fr, 08.06.23

 

“Wishing to experiment and make sensitive the forces and the collective negotiations that take place in a group in perpetual motion, Angela Rabaglio and Micaël Florentz imagine a shared space where the movements of the dancers and the spectators intertwine, influence each other and coordinate intuitively within a continuous movement of interdependence. In this interview, Angela Rabaglio and Micaël Florentz share their research and present the creative process of A Very Eye.”

Interview by Wilson Le Personnic, maculture.fr, 04.06.2023

 

“A Very Eye, bath in beauty (…)
Both abstract and organic, geometric and wildly fluid, the piece explores the material that moves and offers itself to as many readings as there are people present to experience its metamorphoses, its synchronicities, its logics, its intersecting patterns.
“How do we negotiate to be together, how do we remain ourselves by forming a whole, but without blending into it”: these exploratory questions, worked on by six, give rise to multiple interpretations ranging from atomic physics to Arab-Andalusian architecture, from weaving to the dynamics of shoals of fish, from folklore dances to listening to trajectories.
With always in mind this eye evoking the cyclone as much as the look and its tenderness. And this unspeakable, essential magic: living together an intimate and unique moment.”

Marie Baudet, La Libre Belgique, 06.10.2022

Awards

  • On the 20th November 2023, A Very Eye received the “Prix Maeterlinck” (critic price from the french speaking part of Belgium) for the best dance creation of the season 2022/2023.

Credits·

concept and choreography:
Angela Rabaglio and Micaël Florentz

CREATION AND perforMANCE :
Mona Felah, Christine Daigle,
Charlie Prince, Jeanne Colin,
Angela Rabaglio, Micaël Florentz,
Sergi Parés

light design / scenography:
Arnaud Gerniers

music:
Anne Lepère

outside eye :
Christine Daigle, Melissa Rondeau, Esse Vanderbruggen

costumes :
Mélanie Duchanoy

research:
TingAn Ying (choreography),
Olivier Hespel (dramaturgy)

INTERNSHIP:
Dounia Dolbec, Nathan Bourdon

production:
Tumbleweed asbl

communication / distribution:
Quentin Legrand (Rue Branly)

CO-PRODUCTIONS :
Charleroi Danse – Centre chorégraphique de Wallonie-Bruxelles (BE), Les Brigittines – Playhouse for Movement Bruxelles (BE), CCN2 – Centre chorégraphique national de Grenoble (FR), CCNT – Centre chorégraphique national de Tours (FR), POLE-SUD – Centre de Développement Chorégraphique National Strasbourg (FR), Cultuurcentrum Brugge (BE)

RESIDENCY PARTNERS :
Le Gymnase (Roubaix, FR), Tanzhaus Zuerich (CH), Choreographisches Centrum Heidelberg (DE), Garage29 Brussels (BE), Summerstudios Parts (BE), Grand Studio (BE), Culturcentruum Brugge (BE), Garcia Lorca (BE), KANAL Centre Pompidou Brussels (B), L’Abri (CH), Trois C-L (LU), Dansateliers Rotterdam (NL), de Warande (BE), Materiais Diversos (PT), Estudios Victor Cordon (PT), Onassis Stegi (GR)

SUPPORTED BY :
Fédération Wallonie–Bruxelles (BE),
Wallonie-Bruxelles International (BE),
WBTD (BE),SACD (BE)
Dansateliers Rotterdam / RIDCC (NL),
with the support of Grand Studio and Résau Grand Luxe 2021/22,

Logo Grand Luxe

Next dates

2024

05 Oct

A Very Eye

Théâtre le 140,

Bruxelles (1030), Belgique

Website

12 - 13 Oct

A Very Eye

Unterwegstheater,

Heidelberg (69115), Germany

Website

2025

08 - 12 Jan

A Very Eye

Les Chorégraphiques - Oriental-Vevey,

Vevey (1800), Switzerland

Website

Past dates

15 - 16 Jun

A Very Eye

Danse Elargie,

Paris (75180), France

Website

20 Jun

A Very Eye

MACRO – Museo di Arte Contemporanea di Roma,

Rome (00198), Italie

Website

05 Oct

A Very Eye

Théâtre le 140,

Bruxelles (1030), Belgique

Website

06 - 07 Jun

A Very Eye

Les Rencontres Chorégraphiques Internationales de Seine-Saint-Denis / Pavillon Romainville

04 - 08 Oct

A Very Eye

Les Brigittines,

Bruxelles (1000), Belgium

Website

15 Oct

A Very Eye

MaZ | Cultuurcentrum,

Brugge (278200), Belgium

Website