Gregory Maqoma in Lyon: The Valley of human sound – ResMusica

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Lyons. Dance House. 1-X-2022. The Valley of human sound. Choreography: Gregory Maqoma. With dancers from the Lyon Opera Ballet: Katrien De Bakker, Noëllie Conjaud, Caelyn Knight, Maeva Lassere, and folk singer: Angela Flahault. Composition: Greg Gilg. Scenography, lighting: Fabiana Piccioli. Sound design: Jean-Pierre Barbier, Opéra de Lyon

For his new show dedicated to young audiences, the flagship choreographer from South Africa, Gregory Maqoma, explores the valleys of sound and gestures borrowed from the vocabulary of witchcraft or manipulation, clubbing or even running.

Everything is linked at a dizzying speed around a magic box collecting secrets and delusions. By guiding four dancers from the Opéra de Lyon, in costumes (the jacket falling or not, it depends on the key moments of the show) and the beautiful Folk singer from South Africa Angela Flahaut, who also signs the texts for the show. The choreographer leads the spectator into dreamlike, very enjoyable mazes. The music is sustained, bordering on electro, the softer breaks spiced up with dysfunctions in the throws of arms, legs, head; and the gestures that escape from a grip or end up in the box, which is conceived at the heart of the scene as a character in its own right. The cube becomes a scene within the scene, putting fears and joys into the abyss, gathering the dancers in fours or one after the other to let off steam or recharge their batteries. The club becomes a stationary trailer, where frusques hang, nightclub, gym, or even a mirror of our fears, our wanderings, celebrations and joys.

Gregory Maqoma manages to recount female oppression, the anxieties of serfdom, the fear of not being up to it, but also mood swings, breathing, hopes, with subtlety and humour; the public, from the youngest to the oldest, has contagious laughter. Everything is at the same time subtle, graceful and dynamic like a nuanced firework, all in spring and surprise, which would give to think. The dancers of the Opéra de Lyon are magical as often and further enhanced by their play of harmony and responses with the folk singer, who also dances elsewhere and is the only one of the five women to wear a red dress. In costume, the four other women assume modernity, power, but also fragility and doubt. The choreographer offers in this “valley of human sound” to put women in tune by encouraging them to help each other in the face of adversity, it is a beautiful ode to life and resistance, a sweet tribute to dance. and to the music that saves, to the movement that recomposes, helps to rebuild oneself in the heart of the vagaries of life. Whether we wonder where beauty is, or fleeing a storm, it is always the bell of our human reactions that rings: are we ready to face adversity?

Photo credits: © Agathe Poupeney

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Lyons. Dance House. 1-X-2022. The Valley of human sound. Choreography: Gregory Maqoma. With dancers from the Lyon Opera Ballet: Katrien De Bakker, Noëllie Conjaud, Caelyn Knight, Maeva Lassere, and folk singer: Angela Flahault. Composition: Greg Gilg. Scenography, lighting: Fabiana Piccioli. Sound design: Jean-Pierre Barbier, Opéra de Lyon

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Gregory Maqoma in Lyon: The Valley of human sound – ResMusica


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