Sublime
who is noticeable, that provokes admiration
which comes from above, that is located high up
referring to something, someone or a situation
that elevates, moves and transports us
the supreme degree of beauty
beyond reason and expression, between fear, ecstasy and pain
There is a history that belongs to the dancer. A history that sometimes blends itself with another history, that of the sublime. Between one history and the other, there is a mystery. Mystery as mastery, as extraordinary capacity of producing beauty. Beyond.
The history of the sublime begins with the Greek philosopher Longinus and his discussion on how to make an orator capable of moving or persuading an audience. Instruction and ecstasy. According to him, the sublime has already been used to indicate the effect of grandiosity in speech and in poetry; to indicate a sense of divine; for the contrast between the limitations of the human perception and the amazing majesty of nature; as proof of the triumph of nature and imagination over reason; and, mainly recently, to mean something that goes beyond reason and expression. Behind laguage. Unspeakable.
To think about the figure of the dancer is often to think about his ancient function of producing ecstasy, of provoking sensations, evasions in the spectators, of inducing the sublime. How to question this very capacity of the dancer of producing “the evasion from the here and now”? How to perform it no longer linked to the production of transcendence, but to the immanence of things, of situations, to their materiality?
A female dancer on scene in an empty space. Her presence and her capacity of producing presentness, sublime, somewhere between the others and the space, between space and time. Out of the experienced. As the material of the dance piece to be developped, all her mastery, all her places, all her present and presence.
a project by Gustavo Ciriaco and Annabelle Pulcini
CNDC — Angers
Teatro Cacilda Becker (Funarte, Rio de Janeiro)
Public showings:
CCN Tours. December 2009.
CNDC - Angers. September 2009.
Teatro Cacilda Becker. August 2009.
Support: CulturesFrance, Funarte
Choreography/creation : Gustavo Ciriaco (Brazil)
Performance/creation : Annabelle Pulcini (France)
Lightning design : Nicolas Boudier (France)
Production: Myriam Lebreton - Association J'y pense souvent
Residencies : Ménagérie de Verre, Centre National de la Danse
(CND), CCN de ToursCNDC — Angers
Teatro Cacilda Becker (Funarte, Rio de Janeiro)
Public showings:
CCN Tours. December 2009.
CNDC - Angers. September 2009.
Teatro Cacilda Becker. August 2009.
Support: CulturesFrance, Funarte