Eighteen naked bodies will wander in an increasingly vertiginous manner across the stage of the Mercat de les Flors this weekend, while gigantic percussion instruments provide the soundtrack to this Tragédie. new edit with which Olivier Dubois, the dancer and choreographer who came out of the ranks of Jan Fabre, rewrites his great success of 2012, that Tragédie that after performing at the Avignon Festival quickly became a manifesto, a monument of dance contemporary.
The piece is based on a phrase that the creator could not get out of his head: “Being human does not mean humanity, and this is our human tragedy.” To do this, he resorted to the structure of Greek tragedy, with its adventures and final exodus, creating an entire trilogy. And he took the bodies as an indicator of humanity.
This choreographic poem, as defined by the French artist Tragédie, must be rewritten, he assures, depending on the time and context. “Redoing a work does not make sense if you do not take into account the evolution of time and question what has been happening. And in the last decade, among other things, there have been many questions in terms of gender, for example. New people must be included , new sensibilities. But since I am also faithful to the dancers with whom I have the pleasure of working, of the 18 in this piece there are still 6 of the originals,” explains Dubois.
Thus, nudity aims, this time, to desexualize the bodies. “They are human beings who dance and, as such, they are poetic bodies, political bodies and body-works; without a doubt, it is the best way to approach the future of Humanity.” And Dubois adds: “The big difference compared to its previous version” is that now I have assumed my vulnerability, my fears. “Before it was much more powerful, now it integrates a certain fragility because it integrates special sensitivities.”
For this new recreation, auditions were held for up to 1,700 people, and from the fact that it was held at the Mercat, the only Catalan interpreter of the piece emerged, Esther Bachs Viñuela. And although this is not about Auguri, that frenetic epilogue to this trilogy that Dubois began in 2009 under the title Étude critique pour un trompe-l’oeil, and of which Tragédie is a part, there is also a physical and mental challenge here important. “In my pieces the physical part increases in crescendo while the choreography becomes more difficult. Of course, the dancers are true heroes,” she points out.
Àngels Margarit, director of the Mercat de les Flors, presents it for the third time in the Barcelona dance house. The previous time was during the pandemic, with a solo in which Dubois himself traveled through the styles of dance and transmuted into the emotional states that emanate from them, as performer or audience.
As for nudity, it is something essential and basic in Tragédie. “If someone undresses on stage he is showing intimacy, but here no one undresses, everyone arrives naked from the beginning of the play, it is a biological theorem,” he defends.
“Civilizations and bodies are for me indicators of humanity. We could ask ourselves how we have valued bodies throughout history and we would see that cyclically we go from acceptance to rejection… it all depends on what reading is done of the body, yes suspicious, yes magical… And I incorporate trans women, obviously from Euro-Western civilization, and I do not intend to give lessons to anyone, not even myself. But, indeed, body acceptance has been changing and twenty years from now It will be even easier.”
If the nude is possible in the scene, the artist continues, it is because the piece is solid. “That being said, nudity is up to the viewer, the onus is on them.” Dubois acknowledges that he has not always felt like being naked on stage, “because of my modesty, so it is important to know that you have to accompany the team in that.” And he assures that in Western culture that ignores mysticism, the body is perceived intellectually, “we make a colonial projection of our body, we try to bend ourselves, the greatest violence is that which we inflict on ourselves, but a more empathetic vision would be necessary. , of greater humility. In other cultures there is a very important freedom and acceptance of the body,” he concludes.
