© Paco Décina
What stays in my mind and what I still question since returning home almost two months ago is the dichotomy between the spontaneity and harmony of nature and the frightened smallness of human presence. It’s as if all this generosity revealed the closed mindedness our fear creates and how unable we are to slide into these landscapes, which are inhabited by the simplicity of what’s real. Three men will then be alone on the stage .
Winner of the «Ateliers des ailleurs 2»implemented by the FRAC-Reunion (Fonds Régional d’Art Contemporain) proposed by the TAAF (French Southern and Antarctic Lands) and the Dac-OI (Department of Cultural Affairs, Indian Ocean), Paco Dècina is the first choreographer to have participated in this workshop on Antarctic research. After four months of exploring the fauna and flora as well as undertaking scientific expeditions on the island of Crozet, he takes back with him a unique essence that fits perfectly into his artistic process.”
… It’s a simple story, a wordless narration whose main character is gentleness, permeability, as the antithesis of violence. It is not a negation of sometimes cruel and brutal force of life, nor is it a naive attempt to present life pretty in pink, far from it. It is more of hope and opportunity, from an artist’s standpoint to rebalance this massive manipulation of attempting and almost succeeding in destroying the humanity which inhabits the individual…
If it is true that man becomes that which he contemplates, we should then question imagery, and what it contains whilst confronting it with each and every step. These emblems and symbols are everywhere we look throughout our entire existence. Stories are projected on multi-media screens, posters, theatre stages – Their rhythms and qualities continue on in our minds, remodeling this holographic reality we call the world. Let us then be more conscious of this silent language...
Through this piece I am expressing gentleness and nature as remedies to the violence that our current society imposes. Here, nature is gentle, not by lack of strength or brutality, but by the generosity of the space it gives, and its capacity to be used without asking for anything in return. Even while contemplating a simple sunset, it gives itself entirely to us, as if secretly relieving the weight of our beliefs that are thousands of years old.
« For the past 20 years I have been connecting the dancing body to nature’s breath, by using medicinal and philosophical studies and the practices of ancient Chinese texts (Lao Tse, Zhungzi, Su Wen, etc..) Far from belonging to a distant past, these lively texts question with surprising pertinence the reality that modern man faces, linking us incessantly to the ever so (current) Earth/Sky. In this vertical height, with each renewed instant, our presence and the life experiences of our bodies are not distinguished within this nature; a nature which we have forgotten and lost along the way. We are destroying it in this new century, which seems to only consider profit as its God. Here, modern man seems to be engaged yet again to the fallen man, to a man who has lost his breath, chased from Heaven.
What could be more exciting for someone like me, passionate about man’s relationship with nature, the circulation of energies, the study of frequencies and rhythms, than to turn us toward this uncontaminated garden and to listen to the strength of its silence, enriched by the total absence of human pollution? It is as if to capture the essence of a new perfume or rediscover what was at the start of all things in order to have a new beginning.
What effect does this new, intact power have on the human organism? How does it re-orchestrate the
breath and rhythms of our relationship to others and to all things? What is its restorative power to the false
conceptions we live with?
In this antique and profound silence all interrogations seem to find the space in which to resurge, and,accompanied by the freedom of expression and nature, they seem to learn the natural lesson it offers.
It’s as if we were speaking of these far away and forgotten territories, inviting the spirit to regenerate these
deserted lands.
How can we pass this treasure on to the spectators, to the public lost in the workings of our urban cities, so far from the great winds and horizons never observed?
How can we transmit this present lived in the great wilderness, which normally is only a distant memory of our reptilian brain? The answer is a mystery, a work, an artistic creation, a choreography...
This dance show will witness this southern experience, its fragrances and lights, shared here with scientists and later in town with the dancers.
His music will be composed from samples collected throughout this stay. This, to suggest the peculiarity of the vibration of spaces and lights specific to these latitudes and to stimulate the state of presence and the bodily experience that results from it.
These samplings will be like the logbook of the sonic world of the Crozet Islands. They will record human activities, the voices of nature and everything, which by its shudder testifies to its presence and expression.
These samples will, on my return, be re-developed and set to music by the composer Fred Malle with whom I have collaborated since 2009.
You can listen to excerpts from our collaborations on:
http://musiquepourpacodecina.bandcamp.com
The construction of the whole knowledge, from the simple to the complex, from the one that gives itself in non-verbal image to that which takes literary verbal form, depends on the ability to map what happens in time, inside our organism, around our organism, one thing following another, causing another Indefinitely.
Antonio R.Damasio « Le sentiment même de soi, corps, émotions, conscience » - Odile Jacob (2002)
