more pictures
concept/ artistic direction: BÉATRICE JACCARD,
PETER
SCHELLING creation/ performance: compagnie drift –
BÉATRICE JACCARD,
PETER
SCHELLING, MASSIMO BERTINELLI,
Ivan Wolfe, Michael Rüegg, Fiona Hirzel set design: PETER
SCHELLING & Michael Rüegg lighting design: François
Gendre music composition: Ilja Komarov & Trixa Arnold costumes:
Daphné Ineichen mask: Sylvia Tommasi assistant stage set: Sergej
Nikokochev outside eye: Dominique Rust & Beatrice Rossi production
manager: Beatrice Rossi
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The music CD "les finalistes" (composition:
Ilja Komarov & Trixa Arnold)
is available for order under leshalmas@bluewin.ch.
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Technical
Zone
The protagonists take pride in having reached the finals.
But now they find themselves being stranded again in a no-man’s-land
and do not know any more what to do with their arms, legs and steps.
If they do not hang around at the bar, they get themselves tangled
up in odd movement cycles or disappear behind a wall of smoke. Or
they come together in counterpoint-like sequences to play music on
strange instruments.
They are musclemen and lost souls, vacillating between the fear of
having reached the final point and the archaic, pleasurable freedom
that they find at the edge of the world.
In tacit understanding the finalists keep to enigmatic rules, constantly
conjure up obvious or abstruse possibilities, test the responsiveness
of their counterparts and make the most of the odds of the self-invented
contests with surprising ideas.
Every scene is driven with full engagement and great seriousness,
consequence and tenacity into grotesque exaggeration before being
abruptly broken off, dissolved or transposed into something opposite.
The precision in going up in details and the vagueness of the transitions
have an equally enigmatic effect.
press excerpts
“WHEN BODIES START TO REBEL”
“...their actions are just as simply as they are efficient.
Here, the final is not a brilliant major event, but simply the final
round before the very end. It takes place in an unpretentious, surrealistic
arrangement of space and music…. This is not the place to
celebrate thundering victories – and still the six finalists
dance undauntedly forward …however it’s their bodies
which don’t seem to follow them willingly. They begin to rebel,
infiltrate the unquestioning will to succeed…It also seems
that there is a hitch as regards closeness and distance. Constantly
hands land on faces of strangers, crooks of arms become inextricably
entangled. There is dragging and pulling. Necks are unheedingly
twisted or stiffened arms are almost shaken out of their articular
capsules. Everybody sees first to himself.”
TAGES-ANZEIGER, Zurich 3rd May 2004
"DELIGHTFUL FINAL SPURT"
“..The Finalists are characters who are just as bursting
with strength as they fight a losing battle. They draw hot tones
from their musical instruments, percuss mutually their bodies, embrace
themselves or trip themselves over. And sometimes they disappear
behind a cloudy wall as though they would come from another planet…thundering
applause at the Theaterhaus Gessnerallee…”
ZÜRCHER OBERLÄNDER, 3rd May
2004
“ECCENTRIC FINALISTS”
“…Gestures become out of joint, lurch into eccentric
sequences of movement, fitting together to form delightful action
poses between slapstick and poetry….The finalists behave like
musclemen or lost souls…The Finalists thrilled their audience
who showed their appreciation with frenetic applause….With
this production the Zurich Dance Company has once again done a magnificent
job….”
NEUE LUZERNER ZEITUNG, Lucerne, 11th
May 2004
“AN EXPRESSION OF DANCE ALL ITS OWN”
“…Never aggressive, but with full engagement, great
seriousness, consequence and tenacity every scene is driven into
grotesque exaggeration before being abruptly broken off, dissolved
or transposed into something opposite. The precision in going up
in details and the vagueness of the transitions have an equally
enigmatic effect….”
ZÜRICHSEE-ZEITUNG, 3rd May
2004
“FINAL IN ESCHATOLOGICAL MOOD”
“…With poker faces they test their strengths in a dance
duel, arms and heads get entangled until their shoulder joints almost
luxate and necks almost break. Their vehement movements appear just
as mechanical as bewildered and their actions seem all the more
perfidious as affectionate touching degenerates into belligerent
dominance…”
BERNER ZEITIUNG, Bern, 17th May
2004
“MELANCHOLY OF THOSE WHO REMAIN”
“..By denial of any traditional last day moods, the Compagnie
Drift produces surprising images….Women, in an uncanny a puppet
show, become tangled in one another by laconic intention, while
men shrewdly build themselves up to appear as machos, only to cave
in, as in a lucid interval of self-reflection….”
NEUE ZÜRCHER ZEITUNG, Zurich,
3rd May 2004
„BACK INTO THE GALACTICAL FOG CLOUD”
.”..borne by the aerial-light compositions of Ilja Komarov/Trixa
Arnold, “Les Finalistes” captivates by the dense atmosphere
of its images….the movements of the musical finalists are
rooted both in their dancing talent as in everyday occurrences and
often turn from tenderness into brutality. …”
MITTELLAND-ZEITUNG, 3rd May 2004
“BETWEEN OBSESSIVE PLAY AND PROFOUNDNESS”
“…arms seeking each other, bodies which avoiding themselves,
a palpable passion which devours couples who dance. There is an
omnipresence of tango in this production of Drift, whether it is
the music to which the dancers express themselves, the rhythm, the
cool elegance and always this flamboyant passion which unites or
separates the protagonists….”
BRÜCKENBAUER, Neufchatel-Fribourg,
11th May 2004
„STRANGE AND FAMILIAR, „LES FINALISTES“
“…’Les finalistes’ light the fire of a
slight madness and arouse in the spectator the sensation of seeing
the protagonists develop, who are strange and familiar at the same
time. Everyday situations, which turn into surrealism, a delicious
humour, which looms up where one does not expect it, a poetic imprint
and, often, the irresistible seriousness of the clown…they
produce music with strange instruments, dance the tango, defying
each other, tenderly embrace themselves, embarking on an obsessive
tête-à-tête….”
LA LIBERTÉ, Lausanne, 8th May
2004
With the kind support of: Präsidialdepartement der Stadt Zürich,
Pro Helvetia, Stanley Thomas Johnson Stiftung, Fachstelle Kultur Kanton
Zürich, Amt für Kultur des Kantons Freiburg, SSA –
Schweizerische Autorengesellschaft, Zuger Kulturstiftung Landis &
Gyr, Jubiläumsstiftung der Zürich Versicherung, L&arc
