SO BLUE

Louise Lecavalier, Canada

Conceived and choreographed by: Louise Lecavalier

Created and performed by: Louise Lecavalier, Frédéric Tavernini

Assistant Choreographer and Rehearsal Director: France Bruyère

Lighting Design: Alain Lortie

Music: Mercan Dede

Additional Music: Normand-Pierre Bilodeau, Daft Punk, Meiko Kaji

Remixing Producer: Normand-Pierre Bilodeau

Costume Design: Yso

Production: Fou glorieux, in co-production with: tanzhaus nrw (Düsseldorf); Théâtre de la Ville (Paris); Hellerau (Dresden); National Arts Centre (Ottawa); Festival TransAmériques (Montréal); Residency: Szene Salzburg

Duration: 60 minutes

Louise Lecavalier is supported by the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Montreal Arts Council.

Louise Lecavalier and her partner, Frédéric Tavernini, risk all in this intense, rough, obsessive, and mysterious work set to Mercan Dede’s rhythmical, visceral music. As quick as thought, the body dictates its laws and transgresses its limits. “I wanted to allow the body to say everything it wants to say or can surprise itself by revealing, without censoring it, so that out of this profusion of spontaneous movements, something true and beyond our control emerges, something that exposes some of the states of confusion, excesses, and contradictions we’re made of — both the darkness that inhabits us and the unbearable lightness of being and of the soul.” (Louise Lecavalier)

Swept up in a maelstrom, Lecavalier goes on the attack at almost unbelievable speed to the visceral rhythms of Mercan Dede, the alchemical musician who makes dervishes whirl virtually to a trance. Balancing on the tightrope of her life and yet perfectly in control, she shows what she is capable of and more in a perilous solo, revealing a burning fire within and the very depths of her atomic blue soul. In a flow of movements as fleeting as thoughts she becomes breath, energy, light. And then, under renewed tension, she pits herself against the dancer Frédéric Tavernini in a wild and frantic duo-duel. An intense, cathartic journey, out of which no one will escape unscathed. After Is You Me in 2008, followed by Children and A Few Minutes of Lock three years ago, Louise Lecavalier jumps without a net into choreography, pushing the body to a point of no return. A plunge, a magnificent feat, a masterstroke. A must.

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“…An unfettered yet controlled reflection of the self, a manically controlled distancing of the mind and body, an exploration, transgression and restatement of the limits of human potential. Dare the inconceivable, the ungraspable. And the way Lecavalier does it is thrilling and breathtaking.” –Kronen Zeitung, Salzburg

“It was clear from the first second: the next hour would be captivating.” – Neue Rhein Zeitung, Düsseldorf

“A tour de force of performance, endurance and dedication.” – Dance Current, Toronto

“It was captivating. Canada’s foremost female contemporary dancer now shows herself to be a formidable choreographer as well. (…) A revelation indeed.” – The Gazette, Montreal

“A nervous, syncopated dance, charged with electric, even atomic, energy.” – La Presse, Montreal

“Lecavalier, queen of speed, endurance and innovation. It was her ability to allow her body to speak its truth that overwhelmed.” – Dance international, Vancouver

“Louise Lecavalier triumphs at the FTA, Montreal. The spirited energy and inventivity of her movements – the result of an entire life spent dancing.” – Le Téléjournal, Radio-Canada

“Lecavalier opens up a narrative universe that seems to capture life in all its dimensions.” – Dresdner Neueste Nachrichten, Dresden