Je(u) a work by Laurent Chétouane and Mikael Marklund
Is it possible in dance to experience the body and the movement simultaneously in such a way that the movement no longer "suppresses", hides, even denies the body in favour of the two-dimensional visual stimulus, but on the contrary re-endows it with its three-dimensionality, its weight, its materiality, even its "animality"? Becoming body. Again. As a funny game with itself in its own alienness. As a serious game with the fall(ing). As a melancholy game with the "I" of the mirror. As experience of its infinite finiteness.Je(u) - In French, "je" means "I" and "jeu" means "game" or "play". Both words are pronounced the same.
Dance: Mikael Marklund
Light: Stefan Riccius
After having studied Engineering and Theatre Studies at the Sorbonne and theatre directing in Frankfurt on the Main, French-born Laurent Chétouane has been creating pieces performed on major German stages (Hamburg, Munich, Weimar, Cologne, Stuttgart) and at theatres throughout Europe (Oslo, Zurich, Athens, Vienna) since 2001. In parallel, he has created 15 dance pieces as a choreographer since 2007. In 2012 and 2014, his dance pieces were invited to the German Dance Platform. For 2016 he is planning a large dance project on the subject of chaos in cooperation with Jean-Luc Nancy. Chétouane is a guest lecturer and guest professor at several art schools (Berlin, Bochum, Frankfurt, Giessen, Hamburg, Leipzig, Oslo). He was awarded the Wild Card of the RUHR.2010 project and in 2008 the scholarship of the Federal State of NRW for outstanding young artists.
In more ways than one Laurent Chétouane is a late arrival. As a Frenchman who initially studied Chemical Engineering followed by Theatre, and then made a career in Germany as a theatre director, no boundary is sacred to him. He creates new connections between theatre and dance or narration and abstraction. Via Heiner Müller he worked on learning the German language by himself, and as a non-native speaker he developed a special feeling for rhythm and tonal structures. Initially he carried this analytical approach over to the physicality of actors by means of abstract images of movement on the boundaries of choreographic research.