Suddenly – there they are. Having vanquished the shadows they step forward, into the light. Silence. Nothing moves. Our eyes cannot yet distinguish the blurred silhouettes moving, the slow‑mo shapes setting this dance into motion. We need to free ourselves of ordinary perception and focus our eyes to a different scale, to really "see."
The choreography of Paco Dècina is indeed a revelation, a classy, intensely personal statement which closed the festival in Potsdam. Soffio, the name of the piece, means "breath" in Italian, and this piece seems to be an unending wave of breathing from which six dancers emerge intermittently in various configurations and shapes, then slip back into the perpetual motion, the mysterious yet natural coalescing of bodies. Three men and three women fill the immense empty space with their moving silhouettes, coiling and uncoiling, constantly changing their relationships in a subtle, strange detachment. One cannot stop seeing: the shapes evoke flimsy rippling landscapes and the haunting architecture of bodies. And we are finally able to see through the lingering darkness to the richness of the constantly evolving movement. There are few choreographers who would attempt to create a work with such concentrated meditative dancing, accompanied by music with a Far Eastern flavor which avoids esoteric stereotype. Paco Dècina has somehow created his own rules: the dancers seem unencumbered by their own weight, sometimes floating, sometimes melding. He links the movements and their evolution without missing a transition, a reversal, a balance. It is in France that this Italian dancer founded his company, using his own methods of training and perception over a period of ten years. His persistence has paid off – it is rare to see such harmony in a single group of dancers.
He bases his creations on a new way of perceiving geometry and composition which is in direct contrast to others who leave a trail of abandoned bodies and spaces behind them. Even the symmetry in Soffio is not achieved in the "ordinary" way: a dancer takes a shape and another answers with the opposite shape – each step in this work is a statement, and the movement following always a surprise. The choreography of Dècina is like a master class in abstraction, an immense space to explore which is subject to its own and to Dècina’s own laws.
Soffio was an immense pleasure for the six hundred people in the audience of the salle Barrault
Soffio, which means “breath” in Italian, is a large, imposing work lasting a mere seventy five minutes, in which the six dancers nearly suspend themselves in time. Against a score composed of classical Indian music, the sound of running water, electro-acoustic sounds, and silences so thick you could cut them with a knife, three women and three men are dancing -- lightly, then with such intensity. There is neither narrative nor suggestion, bodies are offered to us, to each other, between two streams which become earth and sky. Serenely, solemnly, Paco Dècina unveils for us a luminous piece of his remarkable, clear dancing, solos, duos, ensembles shaped and shaded in the stark simple lighting by Laurent Schneegans. Meditation takes shape in six bodies, imploding, exploding, in flight and ecstasy, all in the space of a breath, a moment of pure happiness.
The Neapolitan choreographer Paco Dècina has just presented his new piece Soffio at the Espace Culturel d’Onyx. It is a singular and meditative piece not meant to be “shown off” – it is simply offered to us by Valeria Apicella, Silvia Bidegain, Orin Camus, Jorge Crudo, Rodolphe Fouillot and Noriko Matsuyama. We mention the names of the dancers as Paco Dècina’s recent works are so closely linked to their interpretation of his dance.
Paco Dècina created his company Post-Retroguardia in 1986. Soffio, his most recent creation, means "breath," in this case a long deep breath uniting the dancers who are themselves the sparse elements of a single immense flowing body – twisting apart, approaching, forming themselves into duos, then separating again in a space devoid of unnecessary decoration. The space evolves, the dancers spiraling, looping, unfurling into vibrant concave and convex shapes, supple, precise, voluminous. It seems the bodies transcend even the onstage space– nothing cuts into this nonstop continuum, no misplaced showoff step interrupts this free interchange of energy holding the six dancers in suspension. The lighting is a delicate counterpoint to the movement and its traveling. And the spectator, moved by the subtle harmonies of the choreography, lets himself drift with the gentle electro-acoustic sounds and the vibrato of traditional Indian music, as well as listening to his own breath and the essential ones of his six dancers. With Soffio, Paco Dècina breathes life into infinite and infinitesimal movement.
In a matter of seconds, Soffio, the new piece by the choreographer Paco Dècina which was presented from January 23 to 26 at the Théâtre de la Cité Internationale in Paris, thrills us with the pure beauty of the six bodies onstage. In an instant, this vibrating energy of immobility, in which the Neapolitan is a past creative master -- plunges us directly into the heart of continuous movement presented by three women and three men. They are at once modest and arrogant, managing to convince us that they are mere temporary vehicles of a movement bigger than they are. This requires the performers to reveal their movement in its purest state, while accentuating its strong physical presence. Alternating between voluntary oblivion and extreme awareness, the work presents a paradox rarely seen, certainly not with this kind of precision.
SPIRITUAL TRAINING
In Italian, soffio means “breath,” in this case a long breath which brings together the dancers spread out all over the stage, each in the middle of a different sort of movement. The dancing is not cut up into pieces, rather it is a profusion of loops and spirals spinning without end from one end of the space to the other. The complexity of the choreographer’s landscape along with its many passionate components, places Soffio as one of Paco Dècina’s best pieces. For ten years, the choreographer, who made his reputation in the 80’s showing us charming slices-of-Neapolitan-life, has been doing his own personal research in which he uses Chinese medicine combined with Eastern philosophy to delineate a spiritual and physical regimen linking each organ with its place in the cosmos. Thus for him dance is the incarnation of a vital principle in which the dancer is truly an instrument to be “played.” In Soffio one sometimes has the impression that the stage itself is dancing, using its own lighting to send dancers on and off the stage. Here also we are reminded of Mr. Dècina’s predilection for using shadow, subtle counterpoints to the movement. Against an Indian music score, floor duets astonish with their sliding shapes, their momentary suspensions in the air in extraordinary, impossible positions, in a landscape where one’s perception of time evolves. And we salute the dancers who are fully invested in the depth and scope of the movement.
(...) In this new work, the stage is empty except for the six dancers. Paco Dècina, in the manner of a painter, traces lines, suggesting figures and shapes formed by the dancers who move with remarkable fluidity and precision. Their movement through space has been carefully studied and laid out and it all comes together in a serene space to the sounds of traditional Indian music. This pure yet mysterious dancing has a fascinating effect on the audience which is transported into a world of softness and harmony.
(...) In all his works, Paco Dècina always works intensely with his dancers, refining and shaping their movements, consisting of poses, postures, figures. In his new piece Soffio, he goes even farther, the movements are even more subtle, using vibrations, energies and shapes which seem almost calligraphic in nature. (...) The six remarkable dancers moving, move us with the purity of their movements in the space. And the audience, enraptured, follows this superb work attentively, seeing the source of its choreographic material rooted in the bodies of the dancers. A beautiful work.
(...) Gesture is everything. The title is eloquent: Soffio, meaning ‘breath’ in Italian, a breath rising over the sound of Indian music, chosen for its relationship to the infinite. Here three men and three women appear, as if in transit, as if needed elsewhere, far away, far inside themselves in fact, where they observe their own evolution, their entire being transforming inside this supple, floating space. Their mute presences move in long lines of absence, resisting, then surrounding, surrendering. This is dance as suggestion, sketched precisely into and laid over a shimmering watercolor background, exquisite shapes which barely touch the floor. Isadora Duncan would have loved this, a vibrating perpetual energy which transports the audience into a sort of meditative state. The extraction of living breath, shuddering and reaching deep down into the flesh, is a delicate and daring choice, especially as it touches the hulking frames of giants embodied by two male dancers. (...)
Soffio – breath. Paco Dècina is presenting this creation as part of his residency at the Théâtre Paul-Eluard in Bezons,. He says, laughing, "For several years now I have chosen not to choreograph for performances, instead I have been working ..." which refers to his choosing to be free of the production pressure often felt by young choreographers, instead concentrating entirely on dancing and dance. "In my exploration of the body, space and movement, I am looking for something beyond words," something beyond the conventional ‘product,’ even if, finally, this is a piece which will be performed and shown to an audience. "In reality, the risk is in confronting the blank page, the empty space."
Soffio is one of those pieces in which the dancer, steadfastly resisting that which he knows and does too easily – drops his defenses and lets the movement speak for itself, its emotion transcending mechanics. "One sees immediately how the individual’s essence impacts his energy, motivates his movement, interrupts an angle. I use the empty space as the canvas for self-investigation as well as exploring the exterior world." Thus Soffio is performed on an empty stage, "filled nonetheless with memory and movements from the past." The lighting evokes a set each can interpret as he wishes, and the score by Olivier Renouf combines electro-acoustic and classical Indian music, a favorite of the choreographer due to its focus on the infinite. In its exploration of simplicity, Soffio is an invitation to each of us to imagine and meditate upon our world.
Paco Dècina, an Italian-born choreographer born in Naples, has been living in France for 18 years. He founded the company Post-Retroguardia in 1986 and in 1987 won the prize for choreography of the Menagerie de Verre with Tempi Morti. Since then he has created more than twenty works, many of which have been presented to Aubusson or Limoges (Ciro Esposito fu Vicenzo, Mare Rubato, Five Passages in the Shadows, Fessure, Neti-Neti, Letter to Silence) . It is therefore as a regular of the scenes of our region that we met him following the presentation of his new creation Soffio (the breath), at the Grand Théâtre de Limoges.
The musical and choreographic news of the limousin: This is not the first time you have presented a piece in the Limousin region. What do you think of this loyalty?
Paco Dècina : Soffio is the 5 or 6th piece I present in Limoges. This city always welcomes my work with warmth, thanks to the faithful and generous support of the programming managers. The habit of appointments creates a complicity with the public that is there, always numerous, always attentive and receptive. It's very nice.
NMCL: What was your starting point for this creation?
PD: I wrote a little text that still appears on the presentation file. It is about an empty plateau, a place of experiences and desolation. In this unknown, as the only marker and line of support, a thread, subtle as silk, which seems to connect every moment of our existence...
NMCL: You have long been guided in your creations by visions or intuitions "plastic" or mythological. What are you looking for right now?
PD : Little by little, dance itself has influenced my research and I ask myself the following questions: what is movement, what is the body? I wanted to drop the dramaturgical and narrative side. Approaching techniques other than dance (medicines or oriental philosophies), I realized that one can go in search of this body without sinking into the psychological and the emotional.
NMCL: How to free this body from its desires, its fears, its memory?
PD : I'm looking for a blank space, a field where something new can happen, without first. My work would like to be based on a certain counting, and a total acceptance of what "happens". To do this, you have to open up, make your body available, look at what is happening, let the unconscious emerge without "limiting" the body.
NMCL: Exactly, how do you choose your interpreters?
PD: I look at a dancer and see if he has anything that resonates with my work.
The dancer must be able to question himself: dance must be a tool to learn the world, to be "beautiful". I ask my interpreters for a quality of presence, and to know why they dance.
NMCL: To talk about the human, is the high technicality of your dancers necessarily necessary?
PD : If I work with average dancers technically, I am obliged to accumulate references and psychoaffective explanations to achieve my goals.
The real technique is what allows you to distance yourself from yourself, to detach yourself from problems due to your body. I don't think I'm moving away from the human by choosing "performing" dancers. I don't stage people "ordinary" .
To talk about the minds of ordinary people, I need people 'extraordinary' .
The show should allow us to see everyday life in a different way. I am looking for a new attitude of life, both acceptance of suffering, but also detachment. We must move away from narcissism and perversity in order to be able to offer new spaces to the human being.
NMCL: It makes us a transition back to Soffio. Can you give us some elements to understand how you worked on this "wire" with your 6 interpreters?
PD: The common thread was to make the bodies available, to let the unconscious appear through the movements, without any prohibition.
I propose very simple situations (space, time, colors and quality of movement). Dancers must be in a body attitude of "let go" .
The bodies start to talk, and I let my intuition: that's right, it's not. The whole creative team knows what we're looking for.
The initial idea, a thread of light that we pull little by little, as we untangle a sweater: we undo a space, but the thread is always there, so that the movement caresses the whole space of the theater until the last spectator.
NMCL: What happened to the very strong connection you had with the visual arts?
PD: This link continues to exist in an abstract way, even if this show does not need a décor in the true sense of the word, but it still has a setting of lights!
I asked Laurent Schneegans to work on colors and moods, there are no areas too "cut out" or graphics. It still seems to me that it is much less dark than in my previous creations.
It is true that it is difficult to be alone in front of space, but I want to continue in this direction, and have less and less need for crutches.
Similarly I no longer write the dance on my own body, I write directly on the body of the dancers. I simply give them impulses, qualities of movement, 'materials' , as in plastic arts, precisely!
NMCL: And the breath, Soffio? Is he very present in the soundtrack?
PD : I proposed to Olivier Renouf music (flute, Indian flute, voice), he "knitted" them with various soundscapes and the electroacoustic compositions of Christian Calon.
Soffio is this thread, it's the breath of life... This breath that gives us just one direction, but not a predetermined course, and certainly not the point of arrival!
It still seems to me that this show is more soothed than the previous ones, at least less anxious!
The NMCL: Always this search for serenity!