Noé Soulier

Le Royaume des ombres (2009), Noé Soulier’s earliest work, draws upon his experience as a dancer trained in the language of ballet. In order to understand the articulation of the different steps which make up this language, this solo reconstructs a fragmentary dance using these interlinking movements which enable the different steps to be put together. Signe blanc (2011) continues this research by turning to the art of pantomime. A polysemic dance made possible by an evolving alphabet, Signe blanc brings out the semantic shifts generated by these signs in order to expose the zones where there is a crossover between mimicry, abstraction and discourse. In the last of the three works presented at this year’s Festival, Noé Soulier turns his attention to the work of Frédéric Tavernini – a dancer for Maurice Béjart, Mats Ek, Trisha Brown and William Forsythe. In a highly nuanced portrait, he builds up a personal testimony in which the various gestures, which have left their imprint on the bodies of their performers, tell us much about the works themselves. Alternating between perception and narration, Noé Soulier continues in his quest to decipher dance using, this time around, the spoken word of the performer himself.