aSH
A piece by Aurélien Bory for Shantala Shivalingappa
Visual theater: Aurélien Bory / Shantala Shivalingappa
I asked Shantala if she wanted to experience ash… Something was going to die here and something was going to be reborn. Aurélien Bory
Ash is not merely the solid residue of perfect combustion: it is here a process. It is part of a cycle of death and birth which begins from nothing, the start of any form in the theatre, and leans towards an ephemeral form before disappearing. Shantala’s dance resembles a kolam, a flour drawing made on the ground in the morning and destroyed by the wind during the day, and made again the following day. A geometry has embedded itself in her body through the movements of her Kuchipudi, repeated thousands of times. Circles, points, symmetries, spirals, fractals… her dance seems to be a representation of the very structure of the world. The way the syllables link together in Shantala Shivalingappa is a music in itself. For aSH, a title made up of the first and last initials of her name, the entire space has a rhythm, the space expresses itself first as a vibration, which is then picked up, transformed and prolonged infinitely by the percussionist Loïc Schild. Shantala’s dance is created based on her journey from India to Europe, from Kuchipudi to Pina Bausch, from Shiva to Dionysus, god of theatre, who some say are born of the same god. Shantala is always travelling between Madras, her birthplace, and Paris, where she lives. Her dance is a perpetual pendulum, much like our meeting: somewhere between the Hindu mystique and quantum physics.
With Shantala Shivalingappa
And Loïc Schild (percussions)
Design, scenography, direction Aurélien Bory
Choreography Shantala Shivalingappa
Live music composition Loïc Schild
Dramaturgy Taïcyr Fadel
Light design Arno Veyrat
Automatic rhythms Joan Cambon
Set Technical Conception Pierre Dequivre, Stéphane Chipeaux-Dardé
Costumes Manuela Agnesini with the valuable help of Nathalie Trouvé
Technical Director Thomas Dupeyron
Production Compagnie 111 – Aurélien Bory
Coproduction ThéâtredelaCité – CDN Toulouse Occitanie, Festival Montpellier Danse 2018, Agora – Pôle National du Cirque Boulazac-Aquitaine, La Scala – Paris, L’Onde Théâtre Centre d’Art – Vélizy- Villacoublay. With the artistic participation of ENSATT – Lyon.
Rehearsals and residencies Théâtre de la Digue-Toulouse, ThéâtredelaCité – CDN Toulouse Occitanie.
