Nacera Belaza
L’Onde
© © Gregory Lorenzutti for Dancehouse – Tous droits réservés 2016 ©
Choreography, lighting and sound design, Nacera Belaza
With Nacera Belaza, Aurélie Berland, Beth Emmerson, Magdalena Hylak, and Mélodie Lasselin
General stage management, Christophe Renaud
Produced by Compagnie Nacera Belaza
Coproduced by Kunstenfestivaldesarts (Brussels) ; Charleroi danse – Centre Chorégraphique de la Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles ; Le Festival de Marseille ; deSingel campus international des arts (Anvers) ; MC93 – Maison de la Culture de Seine-Saint-Denis (Bobigny) ; ICI – CCN Montpellier – Occitanie / Pyrénées Méditerranée ; and Cité musicale-Metz
In association with MC93 – Maison de la Culture de Seine-Saint-Denis (Bobigny) ; and Festival d’Automne à Paris
With financial support from Région Île-de-France – Aide à la création
With support from Département des Bouches-du-Rhône – Centre départemental de créations en résidence, l’Institut français – Ville de Paris, the SACD as part of its duo programme, and SPEDIDAM
The company benefited from a Fondation LUMA-Arles residency.
The Company is supported by the Direction régionale des affaires culturelles d'Ile-de-France - Ministère de la Culture as part of the Compagnies et ensembles à rayonnement national et international - CERNI programme and the Région Ile-de-France as part of the artistic and cultural permanence. It is supported by the ONDA for its distribution on French territory and by the Institut Français Paris internationally.
Continuing the journey embarked upon in her preceding pieces, Nacera Belaza explores, with L’Onde, the ritual. And raises questions. How can repetition enable us to connect with what is going on inside us and to become at one with everything? Can we espouse infinity? Is it possible to enter into one’s inner self, and to sculpt movement from the inside, in order to further explore the world?
Via repetition, and the fully-inhabited bodies and elongated, pared-down gestures it brings, we are given us to access the inner depths of our very being, the quintessence of vibration. Our very breathing. The vital impulse which transports our very being, and gives it life. And which stirs it into movement, allowing it to project itself outside of its own body and to resonate which what is. In the work of Nacera Belaza, dance does not seek mastery over the body but rather to liberate it through self-knowledge. The experience is an inner one and calls upon us to let go completely, silencing our ego in the process, our mind, and paradoxically for a dancer, to relinquish his or her body. In L’Onde, the Franco-Algerian choreographer immerses herself in the memory and Algerian archives of traditional, ritualistic dances. It is precisely these dance forms which, via repetition, heighten the intensity of both the gesture and sense of self. They oblige the performer to pinpoint exactly where they can draw upon the strength of these unceasingly repeated gestures. And thus to conjugate a finite act with infinity, and to experience the unchanging element that exists within movement. Thus, the latter is no longer simply danced. It transforms itself into a state, that of the fullness of being.
See also
Nacera Belaza La Nuée
With a reputation for minimalist and captivating choreographies, Nacera Belaza continues the exploration of the circle and rhythm she initiated with Le Cercle (2019) and L'Onde (2021), both landmarks in her choreographic language. Following on from an initial period of creation in Brussels in May 2024, the choreographer then enlarged the creative process of La Nuée by inviting ten new performers to the stage.
Nacera Belaza Sur le fil
Sur le fil is an attempt to escape from oneself, via an infinite acceptation and a going beyond of the frontiers of the body. The choreographer Nacera Belaza preceeds her emblematic piece with a reduction, for children from the Bobigny neighbourhood and Paris. From adult to child, professional to amateur, what do we see in this gesture?
In the same place
Soa Ratsifandrihana Fampitaha, fampita, fampitàna
Committing moving bodies to a contemporary form of orality, Soa Ratsifandrihana, the guitarist Joël Rabesolo and performers Audrey Mérilus and Stanley Ollivier draw on their diasporic narratives and origins to tell a story they would have liked to hear or see. The three Malagasy words Fampitaha, fampita, fampitàna, meaning comparison, transmission and rivalry, form variations in which the performers slide in and out of different states and seem to follow a movement in perpetual metamorphosis.
Jeanne Balibar Les Historiennes
Three women return from the past thanks to three female contemporary historians who bring them back to life via three separate accounts. Here, the actress Jeanne Balibar uses them as the basis for a staged reading. Four women from today’s world take a particularly eloquent and incisive look at three emblematic female destinies.
Nacera Belaza La Nuée
With a reputation for minimalist and captivating choreographies, Nacera Belaza continues the exploration of the circle and rhythm she initiated with Le Cercle (2019) and L'Onde (2021), both landmarks in her choreographic language. Following on from an initial period of creation in Brussels in May 2024, the choreographer then enlarged the creative process of La Nuée by inviting ten new performers to the stage.
Stefan Kaegi (Rimini Protokoll) This is not an embassy (Made in Taiwan)
Rimini Protokoll's roving director Stefan Kaegi takes us, in the company of three native performers and residents, to the island of Taiwan. The fictional element of this show, in which the onstage action filmed live takes us through the twists and turns of a miniature décor, points to a somewhat grotesque geopolitical reality.
Rosana Cade, Ivor MacAskill The Making of Pinocchio
Drawing upon Collodi's tale, the Cade-MacAskill duo uses theatre to investigate the little- explored realms of queer love and affection. In doing so, they tell the story of gender transition and its repercussions on the couple. The piece itself, The Making of Pinocchio, becomes a burlesque-inspired manifesto for different forms currently under construction.
Joël Pommerat Marius
Inspired by the work of Marcel Pagnol, this show explores the theme of escape. Some of the actors had their first experience of theatre at the Maison centrale d'Arles prison. Marius provides audiences with a unique opportunity to discover a little-known but crucial dimension of Joël Pommerat's art.