Cacti
Director : Plasson, Fabien
Choreographer(s) : Ekman, Alexander (Sweden)
Present in collection(s): Maison de la danse , Saisons 2010 > 2019
Integral video available at Maison de la danse de Lyon
Cacti
Director : Plasson, Fabien
Choreographer(s) : Ekman, Alexander (Sweden)
Present in collection(s): Maison de la danse , Saisons 2010 > 2019
Integral video available at Maison de la danse de Lyon
Cacti
World Premiere 25 February 2010, Lucent Dans theatre, Den Haag
In Cacti Ekman turns his keen eye upon the scene that birthed him: contemporary dance itself. A gleeful and knowing parody of the art form’s greater excesses, Cacti is an affectionate, pointed and often hilarious deconstruction of the affectations of dance.
Sixteen dancers stand, seemingly trapped, on oversized Scrabble tiles. While a string quartet plays, and spoken recordings give tongue-in-cheek narration of the action, the dancers run, fall, writhe and try to escape their invisible prisons; eventually – and this is the important bit – they each acquire a cactus. But what does it all mean?
Cacti was created in 2010 and is one of Ekmans most succesful pieces. It consists of 16 dancers creating rhythms together with 4 musicians live on stage.
Cacti was given as a gift from Queen beatrice of Holland to the royalties of Norway on a state visit in Oslo 2010. The piece was also nominated for the pristigeous Swan award for best new dance production in the Netherlands 2010.
Sydney Dance Company, Dresden Ballet, Dortmund Stadstheater and Boston Ballet will perform Cacti in 2013.
The Piece has been nominated for three awards. A swan award in Holland for best new dance production and for the critics circle award and an Olivier award in the UK.
Ekman, Alexander
Alexander Ekman is an international choreographer/director creating pieces for theatres, opera houses and museums. He also directs films and creates live performances/events in pop up locations around the world. Ekman has created and collaborated with around 45 dance companies worldwide including the Royal Swedish Ballet, Cullberg Ballet, Compañia Nacional de Danza Goteborg Ballet, Iceland Dance Company, Bern Ballet, Cedar Lake Contemporary Dance, Ballet de l’Opéra du Rhin, The Norwegian National Ballet, Boston Ballet, Royal Ballet of Flanders, Sydney Dance Company, The Royal Ballet of Denmark and Vienna Ballet. He has also created for festivals the French Europa Danse and the Athens International Dance Festival.
In 2005, at the International Choreography Competition of Hannover, Ekman was awarded first prize by the critics, and won second prize with Swingle Sisters (one of the ballets from his Sisters trilogy). During 2011 Ekman also worked as a teacher/choreographer at the prestigious Juilliard School in New York City. Ekman’s 2010 work Cacti has become a worldwide hit and has been performed by 15 dance companies including Sydney Dance Company. The work was nominated for the Dutch Zwaan dance prize in 2010, the National Dance Award (UK) in 2012, and also for the prestigious British Olivier Award. In 2009 Ekman created the dance film 40 Meters Under for and with Cullberg Ballet, which was broadcasted on national Swedish television. That autumn he collaborated with the renowned Swedish choreographer Mats Ek on video projections for Ek’s play Håll
Plats. Ekman also created an installation for the Modern Museum in Stockholm with dancers of Cullberg Ballet.
In 2012 he collaborated with Alicia Keys and incorporated her into his work Tuplet. In 2014 Ekman created his own version of Swan Lake, a new take on the most famous ballet of them all. A Swan Lake received enormous attention worldwide and returned to the Oslo Opera House in 2016. Ekman filled the stage with 6,000 litres of water creating a real lake on stage. A Swan Lake is available on DVD and the documentary Rare Birds by TM Rives shows the process of how it became possible to create a lake inside an opera house. In 2015 Ekman created his own version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Royal Swedish Ballet. In September of that year he received the Swedish Medea Award for “Inventor and renewer”. In 2016, he received the German theatre award “Der Faust” for his ballet COW for the Semperoper Ballet.
Source: Opéra de Paris
Plasson, Fabien
Born in 1977, Fabien Plasson is a video director specialized in the field of performing arts (dance , music, etc).
During his studies at the Ecole Nationale des Beaux-Arts de Lyon (joined in 1995) Fabien discovered video art. He was trained by various video artists (Joel Bartoloméo Pascal Nottoli , Eric Duyckaerts , etc).
He first experimented with the creation of installations and cinematic objects.
From 2001 to 2011, he was in charge of Ginger & Fred video Bar’s programming at La Maison de la Danse in Lyon. He discovered the choreographic field and the importance of this medium in the dissemination, mediation and pedagogical approach to dance alongside Charles Picq, who was a brilliant video director and the director of the video department at that time.
Today, Fabien Plasson is the video director at La Maison de la Danse and in charge of the video section of Numeridanse.tv, an online international video library, and continues his creative activities, making videos of concerts, performances and also creating video sets for live performances.
Sources: Maison de la Danse ; Fabien Plasson website
More information: fabione.fr
NDT 2
In 1978, NDT founded a second division to feed the main company with young talent. In the time span of three years, NDT 2 prepares twenty classically trained dancers (varying in age between 17 and 23 years) from around the world for NDT 1. Whereas the first company offer a chance for the dancers to further develop their artistic personality, the second company, NDT 2 offers a varied repertoire consisting of works by established choreographers as well as upcoming stars, such as Jiří Pokorný, Edward Clug, Imre van Opstal and Marne van Opstal.
One of the objectives of NDT 2, is to acquaint the dancers with a lexicon of dance languages. Working together with upcoming choreographers, provides the dancers with the opportunity to learn to react quickly to different dance languages, techniques and working methods.
Source : Nederlands Dans Theater
En savoir plus : www.ndt.nl
Cacti
Artistic direction / Conception : Alexander Ekman
Stage direction : Urtzi Aranburu
Additionnal music : Joseph Haydn : Sonate n°5, Sitio, extrait des Sept Dernières Paroles du Christ en Croix, Hob. XX, 1B, Ludwig Van Beethoven : deuxième mouvement du quatuor à cordes n°9 en Do Majeur, Op. 59, Franz Schubert : dernier mouvement du quatuor à cordes n° 14 en Ré mineur, D.810, La Jeune Fille et la Mort, Joseph Haydn : Allegro du quatuor à cordes op. 9 n°6 en La Majeur
Costumes : Alexander Ekman
Settings : Alexander Ekman
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