Starting from the observation that “the use of large ensembles moving in unison is now entirely uninhibited,” Olivia Grandville set out “to investigate a suspect form […], complex, seductive and dangerously ambiguous.” Who better than this former ballerina of the Paris Opera—now a leading figure in contemporary dance and an adventurous choreographer—to take on such a subject? She does it without telling the audience what to think, nor telling the story of dance from 19th-century ballets to today’s flash mobs and participatory forms. Instead, she pushes the notion of en même temps (“at the same time”) to breaking point: holding synchrony together, cracking it open, letting it unravel, so as to reveal both what it conceals and what it releases.
This duality—between ritualised collective celebration and instrumentalised mass choreography—is laid bare in an ambitious form. The video work by César Vayssié underscores the omnipresence of images in every corner of contemporary society; while the musical composition by Benoît de Villeneuve and Benjamin Morando, without ever illustrating or sugar-coating the dance, moves beyond rhythmic beat to make way for an inner pulse.
