Casualties of Memory

Canada (Quebec)   Festivals (Quebec)  
Agent Canada (Quebec)   Elisabeth Comtois 1 514-273-3093
Agent Festivals (Quebec)   Claudia Berardi 1 514-529-0139
© Thierry DuBois

Description

The opening image of Itzik Galili’s latest choreographic feat explodes traditional societal notions of Western patriarchy.

Men and women are not to be regarded as separate beings. Instead, Galili constructs a sensual environment in which man supports woman, woman supports man, allowing each other to be on and off balance, with perfect agency. They know… They will be here to catch one another.

In perfect symbiosis, joy and passionate energy emerge from the dancers and from the rush of the darbuka percussive music played by Les Frères Grand featuring the percusionist Joseph Khoury.

A blend of ethnic and contemporary dance movement, full of curvilinear and visceral power, emphasizes gender equality. Woman as man. Man as woman. Dance at the extremity of body limits. In this moment, the soul collides and the mind forgets, if only for a moment, that there are differences that divide us.

Reviews

The work opens with a mesmerizing slow motion play of light and shadow on two bodies in sculptural flux, connecting and disconnecting, limbs entwining, long lines softening into curves and spirals. But once the music (Les Frères Grand) unleashes a burst of staccato percussion, there’s no turning back. From there it’s a busy, nearly non-stop blast of kinetic energy unfurled with a rigorous, tensile muscularity. Torsos undulate seductively. Hips roll and grind with in-your-face bravado. Arms ripple and coil, legs kick into great arcing slices that could be lethal if the timing by the company’s fabulous dancers wasn’t so dead on.

— Karen Campbell, The Boston Globe

Videos

Casualties of Memory

Casualties of Memory

Photos

© Thierry DuBois