Mirage
With Mirage, the fourth chapter of their collaboration after VESSEL (2016), Mist (2022) and Planet[wanderer](2021), choreographer Damien Jalet and visual artist Kohei Nawa continue their exploration of the constantly shape-shifting nature of life, by fusing their respective disciplines and confronting the human body to different materials.
Departing from the phenomena of mirages and Fata Morganas, these optical illusions connected to specific weather conditions where light is bent by passing through different layers of air of different temperatures, they portray here a humanity meandering in a metaphorical desert, in search for itself.
Through a series of unpredictable transformations, inspired by mythology, climatology, botany , entomology as well as the Hayagawari (a kabuki technique in which actors transform suddenly through a performance) the piece peels the performers layer by layer.
Mirage explores an infinite variety of physical and emotional states. Sometimes evoking the spectres of a civilisation on the edge of a dry well, or traversed by the sensuality and exploding colors of nature found under tropical conditions, “Mirage” is performed like a waking dream, fluctuating and moving like atmospheric phenomena.
With this new creation, Jalet and Nawa, together with the dancers of the ballet du Grand Théâtre de Genève, propose a hallucinatory, sensual, meditative yet visceral quest for a human essence, beyond the veil of appearance.
Languages: no/few language
With: Damien Jalet, Kohei Nawa
Concept and Choreography Damien Jalet Concept and Scenography Kohei Nawa Music Thomas Bangalter Lumières Yukiko Yoshimoto Costumes Kunihiko Morinaga (Anrealage) Costumes assistant Anna Sato Choreographic advisor Aimilios ArapoglouChoreographic assistant Kehua Li Scenography assistant Nikolai Korypaev Creative producer for Damien Jalet Jamila HessaïneSpecial thanks Rombaut shoes
Dancers Dancers of Ballet du Grand Théâtre de Genève
Supported by the Alliance of International Production Houses, the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media, and the Claussen-Simon Foundation.
A co-production of Ballet du Grand Théâtre de Genève with Kampnagel, Charleroi Danse, Centro de Danza Matadero-Madrid, Maison de la Danse, Lyon-Pôle européen de création.