Les Corbeaux

Everything came out of a fortuitous encounter with a Japanese crow. A few years ago, when Josef Nadj was rehearsing a solo on the roof of a theatre in Kyoto, a crow perched not far from him. Out of the glance that the dancer, in full movement, cast on the dark bird, suddenly emerged the idea of a show. The choreographer started to work on this vision. Sketches and drawings allowed him to relive the scene, a graphic step that encouraged him to go further. It was the excuse for a return to a childhood in Vojvodina, in ex-Yugoslavia where the crow holds an important place. The animal of wisdom, a disturbing link with mystery, the symbol of the world's unity, the crow holds the key to the cycle of life and death, the real and the dream, the divine and the diabolical. It was also the pretext for a physiological and behavioural study, involving the imitation of a movement, a gait, a flight, a landing, almost a savoir-faire. How do you become a crow on stage? Josef Nadj proposed this challenge to the musician Akosh Szelevényi, who shares his vision of the world and also knows the black birds of Central Europe's great plain. Together, they imagined a show based on a series of dual presences on the stage: that of man and the animal, that of the body and sounds, that of painting and music, that of a dancer and a saxophonist. The croaking, the colour, the appearance, the movements of the crow invade the space of this theatrical and amicable understanding. Until a third partner imposes itself on the stage, at the invitation of the first two: a black, shiny gouache that, in the thread of the choreographic and musical gesture, deposits its trace with brilliance and covers the body with an opaque veil, as if it were drawing, itself alone, the dazzling speed of the movements and devouring the man whole to metamorphose him into an animal. Before our stunned eyes, the man has become a bird, the body a brush, the saxophone a scream. ADB

choreographer Josef Nadj
music composer Akosh Szelevényi
light Rémi Nicolas
sound Jean-Philippe Dupont
set and accessories
Alexandre De Monte, Clément Dirat, Julien Fleureau

with Josef Nadj, Akosh Szelevényi

production Centre chorégraphique national d'Orléans
coproduction Théâtre Forum Meyrin (Suisse)
avec le soutien de la Scène nationale d'Orléans