As a four-fold imagery, V.-Nightmares spreads its creation over a whole year in an ongoing study of the cycles of seasons and of life. A life of moving scenes and multiple aesthetic confrontations, where the seasons explore the borders between dance and performance, each in their own way and as counteract to Vivaldi’s Four Seasons.
The coda of V.-Nightmares, ICE is as white as snow. And as black as death. Wintry ice is omnipresent. It transcends the ultimate body of death into a morbid pleasure, emphasized by the violent expressionism of hot-and-cold contrast. Following an organic evolution initiated by the desires of spring, developed by the burnings of summer and then enveloped in autumn’s mortal remains, ICE finds its pleasure by working on the material itself, minimal refinement where spectrality and funereal ritual exult. This lunar winter divides its fluidity into two ceremonial movements between strength and fragility, punctuating its slowness and fulguration with beauty and alchemic discomfort. The geometrical subtlety of the whole is thus translated into a succession of performance acts, metamorphosing the four dancers into performers able to work a moving set by Peter Maschke, into shameless amateur video filmmakers following Jacques André’s instructions, into the carriers of Thomas Beni’s lights, and finally into the agents of Maxime Bodson’s sound production.