Salves, Compagnie Maguy Marin: A Contemporary Gaze on the Ultimate Destruction of Humanity.
Courtesy Théâtre de la Ville © photo Christian Ganet
A glowing last supper that explodes in a burst of colour, announces the end of humanity. A reversal of all the Christian symbolism that has penetrated western society as the performers emerge from a fragmented darkness, punctuated by flashes of light, by shadowy moments where dark figures scurry by like rats, where humans are lit as though struck by lightning or bathed in ominous rumblings of machines, and sound bites extracted from a dying culture. Salves by Maguy Marin is a powerful gaze projected on our contemporary world that captures the way we are defiling and ultimately destroying ourselves. This visual sound poem is dominated by Antoine Garry’s sound design, by Alexandre Béneteaud’s lighting design, by the collected efforts of Louis Gros and Pierre Treille with their magnificent props, and ultimately by Maguy Marin’s deeply layered choreography and visual design – a great global retelling of human history.
It begins on a space that suggests a gray backstage area. Wooden volumes are piled up on the side. They are rolled around to become tables, surfaces where the dancers leap, collapse, attack each other or morph into the ground and disappear, ready to move as the rhythm is heightened, the noise more intense and the images of disintegration more disturbing.
A lone figure pushed against the wall, held under a burning spotlight creates a fragment of torture, a setting of terror and suffering as voices of dictators, or fragments of speeches by politicians ring through the stage. Symbols of western culture are desecrated. Language becomes a human gurgle and reading is henceforth impossible. Canvasses by the great painters, announcing the horror of humanity as Goya and Picasso bring back massacres of the past while quiet pastoral scenes remind us how peaceful nature without human beings can be. Delacroix’s figure of the French Revolution comes to life as a dirty and exhausted symbol of freedom, the Venus Hottentote crawls out to confront the performers, after the American/French statue of liberty is dismembered to suggest the colonial wars, the French revolution and other collective human destruction.
Although it begins gently, as the seven dancers invite each other onto the stage, to take part in unravelling the threads of the human web and spreading them all over the stage….something is wrong. The cross section of humanity that parades across the stage, is represented by bodies that are awkward, dislocated, that flip, fly and even dance for joy or attack each other, but that are devoid of emotion or grace. A vast reworking of the history of human culture that seems to pop out of the darkness, returning to haunt us.
And each time preparations for the last supper begin, table clothes are spread, the candles are brought in, the dishes laid out, a place where human beings can sit down together and communicate, the ritual is thwarted by someone breaking dishes, and it all freezes, like a pirandellian moment that destroys the theatrical illusion. It isn’t until the end the illusion is realized, but the last supper is no longer the beginning of a new cultural order but the final removal of us all.
This is a brilliantly conceived performance that brings together corporeal movement, a montage of sounds of many origins, pre-recorded voices, various sources of intense light within a concept that symbolizes the consequences of humanity’s most destructive experiences. Those consequences are represented through personal interrelations, through collective activity, through mental stress, through artistic expression of many forms. A startling performance, a very demanding performance that forces the audience to read the signs, and an event that leaves you near exhaustion. Salves is a physically aggressive experience that reveals how “dance” and “theatre” are evolving, even though Pina Bausch, Ariane Mnouchkine and Artaud’s theatre of cruelty are not far off.
Dont miss this. Salve plays tonight in the Theatre of the NAC. The performance begins at 19h30.