Is it possible to connect with our inner selves through the repetition of movement, becoming a whole, achieving the infinite? Nacera Belaza attempts to do so in her choreographies. Her goal as an artist is not to dominate her body and make it reach impossible limits, but rather to set it free through knowledge of herself. The artist encounters the way of reaching this place of freedom through persistence, or as she puts it, by constantly ploughing the same furrow. For example, in the solo that opens La Nuit, we see the artist pirouette, heading towards the light on a dark stage, as if she were a Sufi mystic, in an infinite repetition of finite gestures and movements. In this way, she experiences the immutability of movement, which ceases to be merely a dance, to become a state of plenitude and freedom for the performer. The constant spinning movement is disorienting and takes the artist into a sort of trance where she is orbiting a centre, in a celebration of verticality.
The hypnotic spins and repetitions appear again in Sur le fil, a choreography for three performers which begins in darkness, to the sound of music that appears to be less meditative, more alive. The dancers, dressed in loose-fitting shirts and trousers that hide their bodies and reinforce the spiritual component of the choreography, evolve alternately under a beam of light, replacing one another in an infinite cadence of hypnotic, repetitive spins which show us the nature of dance as a succession of interstices between the visible and the invisible, between immanence and transcendence, between the body and the soul.
Nacera Belaza was born in Medea (Algeria), in 1969, but she moved to Reims when she was only 5 years old. She graduated with a BA degree and created her own dance company in 1989. Her choreographies include Chacun sa chimère, Périr pour de bon, Point de fuite, Paris-Alger, Les Sentinelles, Le Trait, La Traversée La Procession, Solo(s), Le Cercle and L’Onde. These productions always involve spiritual investigation and exploration of the less visible areas of being human.
La Nuit
A Compagnie Nacera Belaza production.
Coproduced by Festival d'Avignon, Le Parc de la Villette (résidence d'artistes), Bonlieu Scène nationale d'Annecy, Moussem(.eu), Mécènes du Sud, Fabbrica Europa.
Supported by Région Ile-de-France, DRAC Ile-de- France / Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication, Ambassade de France en Algérie, Union européenne, Institut français / Ministère des Affaires étrangères et européennes, ONDA, Fondation Nuovi Mecenati, Institut français Deutschland-Bureau du Théâtre et de la Danse, in cooperation with Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication/DGCA - coproduction grant.
Sur le fil
A Compagnie Nacera Belaza production.
Coproduced by Festival Montpellier Danse, La Villette Paris – résidences d’artiste 2015; Centre Chorégraphique National de Tours / Direction Thomas Lebrun (home studio); Le Centre National de la Danse - Pantin (creation en reesidence);Moussem; Collectif 12, Mantes la Jolie, supported by DRAC Ile de France – redidence assitance; Bozar - Palais des Beaux-Arts de Bruxelles; Künstlerhaus Mousonturm de Francfort.
Supported by Fonds Transfabrik – Franco-German Fund for Performing Arts, Spedidam, Adami.
In cooperation with Institut Français de Barcelone.
La Nuit
Choreography and performance: Nacera Belaza
Sur le fil
Choreographer: Nacera Belaza Performers: Nacera Belaza, Aurélie Berland, Dalila Belaza
