Alain Platel is a self-taught artist who trained as a specialist in learning difficulties and became the artistic director of the Ballets C. de la B. based in Ghent in Belgium. With vsprs he returns to the spirit of La Tristeza Complice (1995), Iets op Bach (1998) and Wolf (2003), three of his previous productions where dance, drama and music are equal partners on stage. From the start of his artistic career, Alain Platel opted for a mixture of genres, working with performers from different countries and artistic backgrounds, some of them teenagers or even amateurs. In the past few years, he has included musicians and vocalists in his productions. Within this particular relationship between circus acts and dance solos, between sketches and ensemble dance pieces or baroque music, the anarchic humanity of the Ballets C. de la B. has made its niche and its reputation. At the Avignon Festival, Alain Platel presented Bonjour madame, comment allez-vous aujourd'hui, il fait beau, il va sans doute pleuvoir etcætera in 1996,
Bernadetje in 1997 and Tous des Indiens in 2000.
vsprs, vowel-less as it is, can still utter the hidden word, ‘Vespers'. However, this is not a religious service nor is it a concert. These vespers are a show of song and dance by the renowned Belgian company, Ballets C. de la B. Alain Platel, working closely with composer Fabrizio Cassol, uses history and notably periods of significant change, to give rhythm to this choreographic performance that alternates chorales and chants and solos which stand out from the group like rough pearls. It is a way of travelling through time and transforming, in a poetic way, on stage, the state of the world as it is today, the disenchanted vision of humankind at the beginning of the 21st century.
Platel's ‘Vespers' are performed at the foot of a burning glacier, a huge pile of white underwear, where he has musicians, vocalists and dancers in a surprising musical melting-pot. Based on Claudio Monteverdi's Vespra della Beata Vergine of 1610 to show that there is no need to ditch the old in order to be modern - and at that time, being modern meant associating collective religiousness with the beginnings of individualism – the original partition is subtly interwoven with other music in different styles, the same way as it was different from its own time. It is haunted by the nomadic spirit of tsigane music and then by the wounded identities that spawned jazz. With virtuoso and dislocated gestures drawn from research into hysteria that was carried out in the early 1900s, the composer and the choreographer give voice to the chant of powerful and tormented bodies.
Irène Filiberti
Distribution
concept et mise en scène : Alain Platel
musique : Fabrizio Cassol d'après "les Vêpres de la Vierge" de Claudio Monteverdi, avec la collaboration de Wim Becu et Tcha Limberger
dansé et créé par : Quan Bui Ngoc, Mathieu Desseigne Ravel, Lisi Estaràs, Émile Josse, Iona Kewney, Samuel Lefeuvre, Mélanie Lomoff, Ross McCormack, Élie Tass, Rosalba Torres Guerrero, Hyo Seung Ye
soprano : Claron McFadden
musique jouée par : Tcha Limberger, violon, flûte - Vilmos csikos, contrebasse
Ensemble Oltremontano (dir. Wim Becu) : Wim Becu, Bram Peeters, sacqueboutes - Marleen Leicher, Fiona Russell, cornets à bouquin
Ensemble Aka Moon : Fabrizio Cassol, saxophone - Stéphane Galland, percussion - Michel Hatzigeorgiou, guitare basse, bouzouki
dramaturgie : Hildegard De Vuyst
dramaturgie musicale : Kaat De Windt
assistante du metteur en scène : Juliana Neves
scénographie : Peter De Blieck
costumes : Lies Van Assche
assistantes aux costumes : Lies Marechal, Nicole Bynens
Éclairage : Carlo Bourguignon
son : Alexandre Fostier
assistante au son : Caroline Wagner
construction décor : Koen Mortier avec l'assistance de Jan De Backer, Guy Peeters, Koen Raes
assistant technique : Necati Köylü
transport décor : Luc Laroy
direction de production : Iris Raspoet
direction de production Oltremontano : Early Music Artist
Production
Production : Les Ballets C. de la B.
en coproduction avec : Le KunstenFESTIVALdesArts-La Monnaie/De Munt (Bruxelles), Le Grand Théâtre de Luxembourg, la RUHRtriennale/Kunststiftung NRW, la Staatsoper Unter den Linden (Berlin), TorinoDanza, le Holland Festival (Amsterdam), Sadler's Wells (Londres)
vsprs : est une contribution officielle au programme artistique et culturel de la Coupe du Monde de la FIFA 2006
En collaboration avec : le Théâtre de la Ville-Paris, KVS (Bruxelles), le NTGent (Gand)
avec le soutien : des autorités flamandes, de la Ville de Gand, de la Province de la Flandre-Orientale
Les Ballets C. de la B. sont Ambassadeur culturel de l'Unesco-IHE, Institute for Water Education