Henri Michaux:Mouvements

Henri Michaux: Mouvements

27^th of November 2013, the first out of two pieces Henri Michaux: Mouvements and Gymnopeies.

This is how you dance a book! 

A choreography by Marie Chouinars, danced by Marie Chouinard Company and music by Louis Dulfort.

Marie Chouinard interprets the book Mouvements by Henri Michaux. The book contains of 64 pages of Indian drawings and a 15 page poem plus an afterword.

She chronological goes through the book, Marie Chouinards interprets each picture and text into the smallest details in 35 minutes. You can follow the score she created on a big screen at the back wall. The drawings keep on scrolling at the side as the performances continues, like a book; turning each side. The stage is white and the dancers are dressed in black from head to toe; black ink on white paper.

This has so far been the best performance I saw since I arrived in Arnhem. I knew about Body Remix of Marie Chouinard but I never had the chance to actually go see it, which I still regret especially after watching this performance.

She made the audience captive, the interplay with the dancers and the music was very well done, and the quality was some of the best I ever experienced. The simplicity and very concrete concept worked well with the psycho rock music, it created a stimulating contrast. What I liked the most was that she kept me interested the whole time I never got bored. But I sometimes wished that the transitions between each pictures could variate.

The audience could agree or disagree with the interpretations of the drawings. She made us a part of the process as well and as an audience it is very exciting to see the actual picture and Marie Chounards interpretation of it, sometimes I didn’t understand some of her choices, but it was exciting to see how she translated it. She opens the possibility for the audience to interpret as well by showing the drawings.

I think it was the simplicity I fell in love with in this piece, the dancers where remarkable and I liked their differences they all were very charismatic.

To think of the whole nights performance Henri Michaux: Mouvements and Gymnopeies suited each other very well, they were very different and it showed how much variety this company has.

I would defiantly recommend this piece if you like simplicity and wanna be surprised, unfortunately it is not in their tour program to come back to the Netherlands in a near future but I would definitive recommend visiting the website to see if they are near by you.

For more information about the programme and the company visit www.mariechounard.com

Written by: Nanna Jensen