Thrice de Damien Jalet

A choreographer of extreme sensations, Damien Jalet creates for the young Norwegian company Nagelhus Schia Productions a show in three movements where bodies engage with the forces of nature. Between wind, stone and sea, the dancers explore intense physical and emotional states and give you a sensory experience.

Built as a triptych, Thrice brings together pieces conceived at different moments and gathered here for the first time at the invitation of Guro Nagelhus Schia, a former performer with the Carte Blanche company. Gusts, Médusés and Brise-lames each explore a natural element, air, matter and water, through the movement of the dancers. On stage, the performers transform the space by unrolling carpets that gradually become a set, like a passage into another world.

In Gusts, the three bodies of the dancers seem carried by the wind and by the mesmerising saxophone of Norwegian musician Bendik Giske. The movements are rapid, circular and almost unpredictable, like gusts of wind.

In Médusés, inspired by the myth of Medusa and created in 2013 at the Musée du Louvre, six dancers play with the idea of being petrified by a gaze. Their bodies alternate between rigidity and fluidity, like living sculptures seeking to free themselves from a powerful spell.

Finally, Brise-lames immerses us in a sub-aquatic world, where the movements evoke waves, recalling human resilience and the need for solidarity.

For this commission, initially placed with Damien Jalet before Covid for nine dancers of the Paris Opera Ballet, the costumes, video images and set design are by the celebrated French visual artist JR, accompanied by music composed by the celebrated Japanese pianist Koki Nakano. The show fully belongs to Damien Jalet's universe, a choreographer known for his collaborations with cinema, music and the visual arts, notably with Kohei Nawa in Vessel and Planet (wanderer), both presented at Chaillot - Théâtre national de la danse. For Damien Jalet, long associated with Chaillot, dance becomes a universal language, capable of telling of our relationship with the world and with one another.