Josef Nadj & Akosh S.
Of Hungarian culture, born in Kanjiza, in Vojvodina, now in Serbia, Josef Nadj arrived in Paris at the start of the 1980s. There, he discovered dance and founded his own company in 1986, the Théâtre Jel. Inspired by memories of the village he was born in, his first show, Peking Duck, prefigured a body of work that is internationally recognised today. The work of an alchemist of the stage who mixes, like no other, gesture, music and the visual arts, while letting the power of literary evocation infuse in the dancers' bodies. Concurrently with his choreographies, Josef Nadj draws, paints, photographs and sculpts. His plastic work is as rich as that that he intends for the stage. In it we find what constitutes the powerful originality of his stage universe, between dance and theatre, those visions in constant metamorphosis in which objects, bodies and gestures seem both very old and brand-new, tragic and burlesque, put in motion by the breath of poetry and irony. The director of the Centre chorégraphique national d'Orléans has often been invited to the Festival d'Avignon: he presented The Ladders of Orpheus in 1992, The Cry of the Chameleon and Habacuc's Comments in 1996, Woyzeck or the Outline of Vertigo after Büchner in 1997, Little Morning Psalm in the framework of Vif du sujet in 1999, The Time of Withdrawal in 2001, The Philosophers in 2002 and Last Landscape with the percussionist Vladimir Tarasov in 2005. As associate artist in 2006, he presented Asobu in the Cour d'Honneur and Paso Doble, the unforgettable clay duet with Miquel Barceló, in the Église des Célestins.
Born in Hungary, the musician Akosh Szelevényi moved to France in the mid-1980s, after classical and traditional training in Budapest. A composer and saxophonist, he has been a jazz, free jazz and improvisation buff since he was 17. His arrival in Paris marked his encounter with decisive masters: Archie Shepp, Steve Lacy and Dewey Redman. Eager for diverse and varied collaborations, he worked with the director François Cervantes, the Centre national des Arts du cirque and took part in recording the album Des visages, des figures by the group Noir Désir, before founding his own group, Akosh S. Unit. He met Josef Nadj in 2003, during the preparation of Eden. They have worked together since for Asobu, Landscape after the Storm, Intermission and Sho-Bo-Gen-Zo and in this year's Festival for The Crows.
ADB, April 2010