For its fifth creative production, Compagnie XY explored the outer confines of acrobatics, through analogy, by seeking out concepts of natural phenomena such as murmurings. That form of communication that can be felt in the flight of starlings : a choreography of hundreds of birds, so well-timed and so dense that it sometimes eclipses the sun, even just for an instant... The collective thus pursues its research on acrobatic language, this time by anchoring the circus act at the heart of continuous movement, a « continuum » that allows situations to reverse, upset and swing without having to oppose ones with others. The bare and immaculately white set presents like an infinite space that electrifyingly empties and fills, where the action is deployed like a chain reaction. A responsive

and sensorial territory where neither nature, nor culture, nor body or spirit would be opposed. It is through this approach and this resonance with his own work that a collaboration with choreographer Rachid Ouramdane was born. He was able to offer his words,

gestures and vision to the collective. Veritable ode to the living, Möbius thus returns us to the absolute necessity of «creating

together» as the basis for all forms of subsistence, perpetuation and invention.

At the age of twelve, Rachid Ouramdane discovered dance  through hip-hop. He also took intensive courses in classical and modern  dance. In the early 1990s, he dropped out of his studies in biology to  devote himself fulltime to dance and joined the Centre national de danse  contemporaine in Angers.

As a performer and choreographer, he has  worked with Meg Stuart, Odile Duboc, Hervé Robbe, Alain Buffard,  Christian Rizzo, Julie Nioche and Emmanuelle Huynh.

Rachid  Ouramdane's creations are often marked by the seal of testimony and  intimate experience (refugee children, victims of torture or natural  disasters, amateur athletes, etc.) from which he weaves a structured  choreography.

Rachid Ouramdane collaborates with circus artists  (Compagnie XY), authors (Pascal Rambert, Sonia Chiambretto), visual  artists (Nicolas Floch' and Mehdi Meddaci), and musicians (Jean-Baptiste  Julien and Alexandre Meyer) for his own creations as well as for  commissioned works and workshops.

With an ambitious project based  on diversity and hospitality, he has been director of Chaillot - Théâtre  national de la Danse in Paris since April 2021.

Source: Chaillot - Théâtre national de la Danse

More information: https://theatre-chaillot.fr/en

After studies of mathematics preparatory class and medecine studies, Luc Riolon begins to make films within the framework of his Faculty of Medicine, then met the famous choreographers of the 80s (Maguy Marin, Mark Tompkins, Josef Nadj, Daniel Larrieu Daniel, Odile Duboc, Josette Baiz, Angelin Prljocaj, etc.) with whom he shoots numerous films (re-creation for the camera, the illegal securements). In the 80s with the American choreographer Mark Tompkins he introduces the video on the stage, broadcasting live on big screens the images which he shoots with his camera by being on the stage with the dancers, mixing live images and pre-recorded images. With Daniel Larrieu he participates in the creation of the famous show WATERPROOF, the contemporary choreography which takes place in a swimming pool, by filming live) the dancers dancing in the water and mixing the live images with pre-recorded underwater images. This choreography has been shown in many countries (USA, Canada, Spain, England…)
Then he collaborates during 10 years with the famous french TV producer Eve Ruggieri for her programs" Musics in the heart ". He shoots with her of numerous documentaries about classical music, opera singers and dance. From 1999 he directs documentaries of scientific popularization, by following researchers attached to the resolution of a particular ecologic enigma. These two artistic and scientific domains which can seem separated are nevertheless, for Luc Riolon, connected by the same approach : the deep desire to understand the world, by the art or by the scientific research, and to restore it to the largest number. Among his recent scientific documentaries, we can quote for example " The Enigma of the Black Caiman ", Living and dying in the swamp " or " The Nile delta: The end of the miracle ". “Chernobyl, a natural history ? “ These documentaries of scientific popularization recently have been awarded in international festivals.

Source: Vimeo

For 17 years, Cie XY has been investigating and exploring the language of acrobatics through the practice of lifts. While relying on the fundamentals of this circus technique, this collective of artistes keep playing with the codes, rhythms and forms of acrobatics to

put them back at the very heart of the artistic gesture. Since then, the company has chosen to work in large numbers in order to multiply possibilities and to enlarge its field of research. This choice also reflects an artistic approach that aims to question the concepts of mass, of the “audience” and their interactions in the same space-time. Beyond that, it remains a matter of questioning the

relationship of an individual to a group or within a given social setting. Through this approach, Cie XY has also chosen to be a true collective, sharing the expertise and ideas of each individual and by adopting a collegial creative process. This constant desire to be part of a process of transmission and sharing in a non-hierarchical framework, has a strong impact on daily work and becomes a direct component of the artistic forms that are produced. In this spirit, the team has chosen to turn towards the public through the collective creation of large-scale forms for the theatre, public spaces or any places that allow frontal or circular performances.

Source: Compagnie XY

More information: ciexy.com