To Bend and Never Break, Compagnie 7273 Performs in Shanghai and Beijing
«When I watch their dance I see a tree in the storm, bending without ever breaking.»
— Koen Augustijnen, Belgian choreographer and dancer
TODAY
The renowned Swiss dancer Laurence Yadi will present a 40-minute solo dance performance, exploring musical representation in body movement, and turning the body into a melodic song. She invites us to join her in a world that will transcribe a range of emotions kept secret. For this new creation, the choreographer wishes to bring into view two extremely interlinked dimensions of the body: the dimension of the body-object and that of body subject.
FuittFuitt means “between,” and is a dance technique created by Laurence Yadi and Nicholas Cantillon, inspired by maqâm in Arabic music, and influenced by Chinese traditional dance and Western modern dance. Maqâm are quarter-note melodic modes that give musicians the opportunity to express themselves in original and unique ways. This dance is a battle in its own way: a sort of claim for a liquid body that is able to express some kind of critical awareness. The only guideline for the performer is to respect the instructions of the choreographers: to bend and never break.
Workshop: Between the Notes of Maqâm
Laurence Yadi will present a 2-hour “Multi-Style FUITTFUITT” dance workshop. To dance is to make the body a medium of communication; is to choose it as a human and vibrant matter, a body simultaneously psychologic and organic. Each movement plays its role of life and pulsation where tensions and shades circulate, turning the body into true melodic chanting.
Laurence Yadi & Nicolas Cantillon
Dancer, choreographer
Laurence Yadi and Nicolas Cantillon’s choreographic approach is crossed by dance history and its different streams; from folkloric dances to Ballet, from musicals to hip hop, from American modern dance to German Expressionism. Throughout their career, Laurence Yadi and Nicolas Cantillon have created about 20 pieces: from silent ones to dance-concerts, from duets to group pieces, all of which they have toured internationally (to Africa, Asia, the United States, Europe, the Middle-East, and Russia). They regularly give workshop sessions in Switzerland and abroad. They are also invited to teach “Multi Styles Fuittfuitt” to young dancers in professional training. In 2014 they published a book, in part a diary, in part a guide on the practice of “Multi Styles Fuittfuitt” for others, as the ways to approach it are endless. Yadi and Cantillon have been recognized with several awards: the Swiss Prize for Dance and Choreography, and the Prix de la Fondation Liechti pour les Arts.
Compagnie 7273
Since the creation of Compagnie 7273 (established 2003), Laurence Yadi and Nicolas Cantillon have developed a dance style that invites the body to continuously and endlessly unravel. Their research is inspired by the specific Arabic music system of maqâm. Each maqâm describes a “tonal-spatial factor” or a set of musical notes and the relationship between them. It allows the musician to play in-between the notes and gives him the opportunity to express himself.
For nearly two decades, Yadi and Cantillon have traveled around the world to find the necessary creative inspiration; to tell the story, to turn the story into a visual effect and to transcend reality. They never try to introduce their own forms of performance to the local, but instead, look for traditional art in the local context, and fuse it with new elements to create contemporary art. It is in the Middle East that Yadi and Cantillon have created their “Multi-Style FUITTFUITT.” They use this dance technique to make the action wavy, spiral, similar to a hypnotized dance state.
(Banner image ©️Gregory Batardon)
