Sinfonia Eroïca

The show

A Revival Performance

Perhaps nothing could define the show better than the image of a relay runner handing over the baton to his teammate : the combining of musical and choreographics phrases taken from here and there, an interplay of crossings, glidings and parallel and different movements, recounting to us the eternal story of man and woman, of couples forming and splitting, of the group versus the couple, and drawing for us the changing yet immortal figure of the hero. The alternating of playful and serious moments, of what is danced and what is not danced, of moments and contemplation, where energy espouses emotion and where gestures form one body with the music.

In Sinfonia Eroïca, couples form and split up, with one woman remaining by necessity single, during stories that are suggested rather than focused on. I am attempting to bring into play what these stories trigger outside the couple, to see male complicity compared with female complicity, to grasp the relationship established between the bodies of the men and the women in the dance. I also question the idea of an everyday hero, and the heroic aspect of the couple and the group. how does one become a hero in life, and how does one become a hero from the moment one is designated as such in the eyes of the others ?

Created in 1990, Sinfonia Eroïca was performed sixteen years later, in june 2006 in Charleroi. I wanted to revive Sinfonia Because I am very fond of it: this show has been important for me, for my work and for the life of the company. The audience also gave it and extraordinary welcome. In Sinfonia there is a way of approaching the group relationship and the relationship with the stage which is specific to my way of working and which is as valid today as it was in the past. It is a show whose every aspect – musical, dramatic and scenographic – has been worked out in depth but which is essentially based on the collective impetus and energy which the group produces on the stage, giving it a form of innocence and lightness that is magical. This magic is what I wanted to create.

Michèle Anne De Mey