Dance Among the Water Lilies • Dalila Belaza, Figures, performative version

Developed in parallel with the group pieces Au Cœur (At the Heart) and Rive (Shore), the solo piece Figures, an imaginary ceremony that examines the sources of our contemporary lives, can represent both the culmination of a search and its most refined aspects.
In a transformative atmosphere, where intimacy merges with the history of humankind, a mysterious “material character” emerges, transcending space and deploying a form of abstraction imbued with age-old resonances. As in some of her sister Nacera's creations, in which Dalila has participated ever since their shared beginnings, body and dance emerge from the dawn of time, from metaphorical narrative to letting go, on the edge of materiality and without ever referring to any specific tradition.
Fluid and apparently abstract, dressed in a costume that seems to have no contours, borne by subliminal lights and sound environments, this body given over to the unconscious belongs to all humankind’s communities. And as in Pierre Soulages’ paintings, light can emerge from darkness, not as an interloper but as its outpouring.
 

Design, artistic director, choreography, sound and light: Dalila Belaza.
Material character creation: Jeanne Vicérial.
Performers: Dalila Belaza
Material character understudy: Aragorn Boulanger. Lighting control (alternating): Sébastien Marc, Alexandre Barthélémy
Sound control (alternating): Tristan Viscogliosi, Solal Mazeran.

The Musée de l’Orangerie and the Paris Autumn Festival present this show as a coproduction, as part of the “Dance among the Water Lilies” program.