Asobu
Hommage to Henri Michaux
21/10/2006
, 
22:00
choreography and scenography Josef Nadj
musics Akosh Szelevényi, Szilàrd Mezei
choreographer assistant Mariko Aoyama
liht designer Rémy Nicolas assistito da Christian Halkin
scenography realisation Michel Tardif e i laboratori del Festival d’Avignon
décor Jacqueline Bosson
costume designerYasco Otomo
video ideation Thierry Thibaudeau
with Guillaume Bertrand, Istvan Bickei, Damien Fournier, Peter Gemza, Ikuyo Kuroda (BATIK), Mathilde Lapostolle, Cucile Loyer, Nasser Martin-Gousset, Josef Nadj, Kathleen Reynolds, Mineko Saito (Idevian Crew), Gyork Szakonyi e la Compagnia Butoh “Dairakudakan”: Ikko Tamura, Pijin Neji, Shioya Tomoshi, Yusuke Okuyama
co-production Centre Chorégraphique National d’Orléans, Festival d’Avignon, Setagaya Public Theatre (Tokyo), Théâtre de la Ville – Paris, Emilia Romagna Teatro Fondazione
duration 1 hour 30 minutes
ASOBU
a journey through dream and madness where body and intelligence can't be controlled
Asobu, Josef Nadj’s last work, places itself as an ideal prosecution of a journey started with Last Landscape and, through the dialogue between dance and music, involves a reflection on the painting act on one side, and on musical writing on the other. Inspired to the poet and painter Henri Michaux, Nadj’s work, whose title in japanese means “play”, proceeds on the slight border between stage and gesture, which Nadj accepts as a ludic but responsible challenge. One of the choreographer’s favourite activities is, in fact, exploring the life and the works of the artist until he can trace imaginary connections with himself and his artistic research on body, movement, poetry and imagination. And surely there are links with the creator of the character Plume. Although a sarcastic writing made of cruel humour, Michaux could combine poetic value and dreaming imagination, so masterful as his ferocious sense of rebellion, and it’s in his tendency to travel and peregrination that he meets Nadj’s spirit. The jouney in the land of rising sun was a lucky coincidence for both of them, since it meant a new creation either for Michaux (A barbarian in Asia) and for Nadj himself (Asobu). A real and metaphorical journey which pushed Nadj to integrate his company with six Japanese contemporary dancers, four of them coming from Butoh. In that way the bodies dissolve in a scenic landscape, which aggregates and deforms thanks to the presence of mannequins and masks. The bodies lay down, get up, fall, go across, reveal interior worlds in the agglomerate of material, which gives an effect of mass and density. And then the dance explodes in the way chosen by Michaux for the proceeding of his writing: in an explosive and vital way, capable to fuse in the immediacy of an imaginary without controls or writing. In the same way Nadj’s dance explodes across the horizon, vibrating.
link to the company
