Nacera Belaza
L'Envol
© L'Envol, Nacera Belaza © Laurent Philippe ©
© L'Envol, Nacera Belaza © Laurent Philippe ©
Choreography, sound and light design, Nacera Belaza
With Paulin Banc, Nacera Belaza, Dalila Belaza, Mohammed Ech Charquaouy
Stage manager, Christophe Renaud
Production Compagnie Nacera Belaza
Coproduction Montpellier Danse ; MC93-Maison de la Culture de Seine-Saint- Denis ; Le Festival d'Automne à Paris ; deSingel, Campus International des Arts (Anvers) ;
Points communs, nouvelle scène nationale de Cergy / Val d'Oise ; Theater Freiburg
As part of a studio residency: CCN Ballet de Lorraine; CCN2-Centre chorégraphique national de Grenoble; Cndc-Angers
With the support of Fonds Transfabrik - Fonds franco-allemand pour le spectacle vivant ; King's Fountain ; Villa Albertine ; région Île-de-France, as part of the creation aid scheme ; Drac Île-de-France / ministère de la Culture as a compagnie conventionnée (subsidized company).
The Festival d'Automne à Paris is co-producer of this show, and co-presents it with Chaillot - Théâtre national de la Danse.
Nacera Belaza probes deep into the liminal space revealed by emptiness. The choreographer sets out to engender states of conscience and body in which the individual might falter, succumb, and embrace the inevitable. For the last thirty years, the artist has been unceasing in her efforts to invite performers and audiences to experience a fascinating dance of the existence, on the frontier between darkness and light.
At the start of each new piece, there is always an unrevealed image. This interior landscape enables the choreographer to create a matter which she then hollows out in order to allow the contours of this “unexpected emptiness which meets all our expectations” to appear. Onstage, in the company of other performers, Nacera Belaza looks for the paths which will lead each of us to the abandonment of our fears and resistances, and to the renunciation of the body and all forms of knowledge. This is the path that leads to the acceptation of failure as a liberating force. Proceeding via a process of subtraction, she creates sparse, pared down works for which she composes the choreographic, sound and lighting scores. Similar to tuning an instrument, the artist harmonises those who are dancing and those are watching so that they run on the same frequency, the perceptible and the imperceptible. Following on from L’Onde, presented at the Festival d’Automne à Paris in 2020, with this new piece Nacera Belaza places herself at the exact same place where her research has always brought her, in which the unmasterable brings forth the unexpected, a possible other.
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?
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