Stav Struz Boutrous / Ola Maciejewska Nomads / Loïe Fuller : Research

A former dancer with the Batsheva Dance Company, the young choreographer bridges the gap between traditional songs from Armenia and Azerbaijan and contemporary dance. The piece delves into the private lives of a female duo to tell stories of nomadic life in the Caucasus region.

In this duet performed with Meshi Olinky, the Israeli choreographer Stav Struz Boutrous looks at the tradition of nomadism in Caucasus, a mountainous region at the border between Europe and Asia. Nomads follows in the footsteps of these constantly moving tribes that often finish their journey where they started it. The piece takes place in the private home of two women sharing this wandering fate. In this place abandoned by their relatives, the choreographer conveys their aspirations, desires and consolations by adapting folk dances from Armenia and Azerbaïjan – once performed to upbeat music – here exposed to silence. Song and breath guide the bodies into ancient gestures and rituals, associated with traditional costumes and fabrics.  

But the choreographer brings an indisputably contemporary approach, blurring the edges between movement and music as well as highlighting the musicality of the body and how it crystallizes and passes on customs and a culture from generation to generation. Nomads fits into the long-running research of Stav Struz Boutrous – a former dancer with the Batseva Dance Company – on the cultures of the Caucasus and the ex-Soviet Union where she bridges folklore and contemporary dance.
 

Vincent Théval

Loïe Fuller, an icon of American modern dance, is known for her “serpentine dance” in which she swirled her dress around. Since 2011, Polish choreographer and performer Ola Maciejewska has researched and passed on the work of Fuller, which led to this solo performance.

A constantly evolving piece since it premiered in 2011, Loïe Fuller: Research is the first solo piece by Ola Maciejewska. The choreographer, performer and artist revisits the motifs of the serpentine dance invented in the late 19th century by Loïe Fuller, an icon of modernism. Bordering on abstraction, the performance features changing shapes which unfold in two different exercises evocative of the relationship between sculpture and sculptor. The famous dress designed by Loïe Fuller resembles a “dance construction”, an assemblage of rods, fabric, and a body. The movement then grows out of the relationship between the human body and this object.  Ola Maciejewska creates shapes to make that connection visible as she brings her own reinterpretation of Fuller’s art and passes on her legacy.

This performance fits into a long-running research of the choreographer on the connection between dance and visual arts, which includes other pieces on serpentine dances such as the trio Bombyx Mori (2015) and a new work scheduled for the Fall of 2025. In a joyful and reflexive movement, Ola Maciejewska brings a critical interpretation to the history of dance.

Vincent Théval