Self Unfinished

source: theguardian

Xavier Le Roy Lilian Baylis Studio, London EC1

Theatre of Silence Purcell Room, Southbank, London SE1

Xavier Le Roy is a 45-year-old conceptual choreographer. Based in Montpellier, he began making experimental performance work in 1994 and is something of a favourite with dance theorists, who feverishly discuss such things as his “intermediality” or the way that his creations “disembody the authority of simulation”. In Self Unfinished, we discover Le Roy sitting in a shirt and trousers at an office table. Standing, he performs a number of robotic walks, making hydraulic clunks and wheezes as he goes. The heart sinks. Are we in for an hour of unsmiling French beatbox? Le Roy walks around some more, then lies down as if dead. Both effects serve to dehumanise him, preparing us for the weirder metamorphoses to come.

The main section of the piece relates to the unsettling shapes that the body can form. Imagine a naked man half-way through a somersault, so that his head is invisible and his back is facing you, topped by his buttocks, which in the case of Le Roy are narrow and bony, like a frog’s. The result is a phallic column of flesh, apparently supported by spindly little chicken-wing legs.

These are actually Le Roy’s arms, but the transformation is so complete that the eye prefers the illusion. When his legs slowly appear at the side of his body, by the same token, we read them as huge, lowering arms. As we watch, the object of our gaze switches between human and not human, between a naked, middle-aged man and some hellishly modified creature from a Hieronymus Bosch painting.

As in Bosch’s work, there is a strong sense of the unheimlich, of the natural order rearranged to fearful effect, and the fact that Le Roy uses his own body as the instrument of subversion gives the work an almost Promethean character. It’s presented with high conceptual seriousness, but I was reminded of a boy at my school who liked to pull out his pocket linings like ears, dangle his schlong from his flies and announce: “Look, an elephant!”

Seeking Oedipus by the Greek mime company Theatre of Silence came into being because director Aspasia Kralli wanted to stage a version of the tragedy that could be universally understood. Unhooked from the words, however – Sophocles, Euripides and Aeschylus all wrote Oedipus plays – this cross-generational tale of male rape, incest and suicide is so convoluted that you can only understand the mime if you’ve read the synopsis at least twice.

That said, Kralli is impressive as the blind, clairvoyant Teiresias, Giorgis Tsambourakis is a sympathetic Oedipus, and the vertiginous set gives the requisite sense of danger. A good piece for a first date, although perhaps not with your mother..
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source: youtube

French choreographer Xavier Le Roy defies categorisation as a dance-maker, drawing on diverse influences from the worlds of science, performance art and contemporary dance.
In Self Unfinished (1998), Le Roy takes the audience on a journey of metamorphosis as he transforms into an extraordinary hybrid creature part machine, part alien, part human.
Employing all manner of physical devices, Le Roy creates a world of illusion that is as unsettling as it is transfixing.
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source: centrepompidoufr

La démarche de Xavier Le Roy interroge en permanence ce qui constitue les contours et la singularité des êtres. Solo quasi inaugural de son répertoire, créé en 1998, Self Unfinished scrute ce que son travail ne cessera de questionner par la suite : quelles situations peuvent transformer le corps humain ? Est-il capable de devenir autre : machine, animal, étrange objet non identifié ? Ce spectacle désopilant engendre la confusion du public : où commence et où se termine le corps ? Où est l’avant, l’arrière, le dessus, le dessous dans un espace ? Il explore le visible, régime spécifique d’expression et de perception, pour mieux nous perturber : voyons-nous réellement ce que nous voyons?
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source: kaatjp
空っぽの舞台にシンプルなテーブルや椅子が置かれ、その間で見慣れない奇怪な形に歪んだ身体が不思議な動きを見せている。人は初めて見る動きのパターンでも、記憶の中からそこに保存された身体イメージを引き出し、その基準にあてはめて捉えようとするが、床に手をつき、奇妙な形に折り曲げた胴体は、どちらが体の上半分なのか下半分なのか、前進しているのか、後ずさっているのかもわからない。しかし脳の働きによって、いつしか手は足に、腕は脚に、頭が尻に置き換えられてゆく。「両腕」の間に頭が見えないが、この不完全な部分が補われ、完全な身体として見えてくる。

見慣れない、しかしどこかで見たことのあるようなユーモラスで不思議な身体風景だ。不気味な生き物のようにも、また抽象的なフォルムにも見える。これを見ているうちに、分子生物学者でもあるル・ロワが仕込んだ、見方の常識を覆すようなトリックのとりこになってしまったことに気づく。見てはいけない見世物を見ているような、好奇心とうしろめたさが同居するような奇妙な感覚が呼び覚まされる。これは何、というのが問題なのではなく、自分がそれをどのように見るか、という問題が見る者に突きつけられているのだ。

“Self Unfinished”に関連して、人間の身体とは未完の芸術品だ、とグザヴィエ・ル・ロワと述べているが、かつて大学で分子生物学を学んだという異色の振付家・パフォーマーのル・ロワは、自分の身体という生物学的な素材から予測もつかない組み合わせを引き出し、目に映る形象と人の知覚の関係性とその交換作用とを問い直している。
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source: dancapos-moderna2blogspot

Xavier le Roy estudou biologia molecular na Universidade de Montpellier.Ele trabalha como dançarino e coreógrafo desde 1991.De1997 a 2003, foi artista residente em Podewil-Berlin.Ele realizou trabalhos como Self Unfinished (1998),Product of Circumstances (1999), Xavier le Roy2000),um trabalho de Jêrome Bel, Giszelle (2001) criado em colaboração com Eszter Salamon,Project (2003) um trabalho com 15 performers. Ele também realizou Das Theater der Wiederholungen (2003), uma ópera de Bernhard Lang e Mouvemenys fur Lachenmann. Em 2006 coreografou Ionisation de Edgar Varése, com 40 crianças.Em 2004 e 2006, ele esteve envolvido em vários programas educacionais em diferentes contextos e instituições.Em 2007/2008 foi associado no Centro Coreográfico Nacional de Montpellier.Em 2010 foi artista residente do Programa de Arte Cultura e Tecnologia do Mit.
Le Roy rejeita completamente a imagem de como um dançarino deve ser. Como coreógrafo e dançarino, ele trabalha com as dimensões incomuns de seu corpo, explorando as qualidades e descobrindo suas específicas possibilidades. Os defeitos de seu corpo o levam a uma virtuosidade fisicamente estranha e ao absurdo . “Le Roy fragmenta o macrocosmos do seu corpo para buscar relação entre imagem corporal e identidade” (Shilcher 2002,33).
“Questionar corpo comum á um corpo deficiente…”
Xavier le Roy nos mostra em sua composições o quão belo e interessante é seu corpo comumente considerado desproporcional. Realmente braços longos e seu movimento cotidiano parecem desengonçado. Se olharmos ao caminhar nas ruas talvez nem pensássemos ser um bailarino ( dançarino) famoso. Então devemos rever nossos preconceitos e redefinir dança e o corpo dançante. (Ciane Fernandes – Mexendo as cadeiras/ Como sistema Laban-Bartenieff pode ser bom para tudo?).Entre seus trabalhos :

Self Unfinished (1998)
Aos poucos começa dobrar e desdobrar seu corpo sozinho ou contra parede ou embaixo da mesa, por dentro da roupa masculina que vira um “vestido”. Le Roy associa variações no peso (forte ou leve ), fluxo ( contido ou livre ), e foco direto.