posted October 01, 2001 09:08            

09.29.01
Boris Charmatz [FRANCE]
Con forts fleuves
Usine C
Festival International de Nouvelle Danse

Choreography: Boris Charmatz

Performed by: Nuno Bizarro, Dimitri Chamblas, Boris Charmatz, Julia Cima, Olga de Soto, Vincent Dupont, Joris Lacoste, Myriam Lebreton and two others

Music: Otomo Yoshihide

Texts: John Giorno

Boris Charmatz seems a little twisted. In my opinion that's not necessarily a bad thing. It gives him the freedom to explore ideas that are completely off the wall, such as having his dancers perform with pairs of pants wrapped tightly around their heads, bobbing and weaving around each other like mental cases for about an hour until wool blankets float down from the ceiling, covering the stage like a grey snowdrift.

Unfortunately, Charmatz' strange ideas appear to have evolved in to what are most likely pale reflections of his original intentions. I suspect that Charmatz has explored the tangible side of movement to such an exacting degree that he feels the need to go to the opposite extreme in order to feel anything about dance at all. (Prozac could help.) At times I felt I was slipping into a scene that Goya would have painted, a dark place of conflicting emotions and deep distress.

The internal chaos of this piece was echoed by the cacophony of sound created by Otomo Yoshihide and the miked vocal ramblings of the performers. My inital impression was that this show was just the contemporary dance version of a performance by the Japanese noise-core group 'The Boredoms.' Later I found out that Otomo Yoshihide has recorded and performed with Boredom's guitarist Seichi Yamamoto. I guess overlaps in the noise-core community resemble the incestuous relations of the dance world, demonstrated in this case by Charmatz using some of the same performers as Vera Mantero, Mathilde Monnier, Jérôme Bel, etc., etc.

I would like to see more of what Charmatz has to offer to contemporary dance; people who appear to be slightly on the edge or disturbed--and are willing to explore that sometimes dangerous territory--interest me. Not so for the majority of the spectators it would seem. Con forts fleuves was a long hour for most of the audience, particularly for the people who are psychologically well adjusted.