10000 Gestures at Volksbühne

Choreography: Boris Charmatz

Cast: Djino Alolo Sabin, Salka Ardal Rosengren, Or Avishay, Régis Badel, Jessica Batut, Nadia Beugré, Alina Bilokon, Nuno Bizarro, Matthieu Burner, Dimitri Chamblas, Olga Dukhovnaya, Sidonie Duret, Bryana Fritz, Kerem Gelebek, Alexis Hedouin, Rémy Héritier, Samuel Lefeuvre, Johanna Lemke, Maud le Pladec, Mani Mungai, Jolie Ngemi, Noé Pellencin, Solène Wachter, Frank Willens

Title: 10000 Gestures

Venue: Volksbühne, Berlin, Germany

Date: November, 2017

Photography: ©Ursula Kaufmann, all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and ©Volksbühne, Berlin

10000 Gestures is based on the fascinating idea of performing a piece in which no single movement is repeated. After its premiere at Tempelhof, this explosive alphabet of dance will be performed for the first time on the stage of the main house at Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz. Once performed, it will immediately disappear again.

“For me, the feeling of impermanence is the central element of the piece,” says the French choreographer. All 24 dancers perform 400 gestures in strict sequence. A melancholy frisson of movement, an ocean of information. Is it the antithesis of programmed data, that cascades hypnotically dancing out of the Cloud? For 10000 Gestures Charmatz works once again with the fashion and costume designer Jean-Paul Lespagnard. He transforms looks from the public sphere and adapts them to the dancers: a kind of transformed djellaba or the abstracted garb of a road worker, uniforms reminiscent of urban security units, transgender terrorists or fragments from opulent gowns. Above it all resounds the monumental funeral music from Mozart’s Requiem.

Finally, the audience is seated opposite a moving picture that can be no longer captured completely; the eye roams continually back and forth from details to the big picture, between the individual and the communitas. A linear narrative is dissolved in a whirl of sparkling micro events. Transient, yet unforgettable!

Choreography: Boris Charmatz
Choreographer’s assistant: Magali Caillet Gajan
Lights designer: Yves Godin
Costume designer: Jean-Paul Lespagnard
Vocal training: Dalila Khatir
General stage manager: Georg Bugiel, Fabrice Le Fur
Stage manager: Florian Staub
Sound technician: Perig Menez, Deniz Sungur
Sound technicians: Mathieu Morel, Pierre Routin
Production: Philip Decker, Paul Viebeg
Dresser: Marion Regnier
Production direction: Sandra Neuveut , Martina Hochmuth, Amélie-Anne Chapelain

10000 Gestures. Photo: Ursula Kaufmann

Dancefloor with T.Raumschmiere. Photo: Ursula Kaufmann