NYSTAGMUS

NYSTAGMUS is an installation project that serves as an extension of the choreographed piece “NYST”, created for the 2022 Avignon Festival.

Having performed NYST around ten times, several observations have emerged:

- In this piece, the presumed obligation to understand gives way to the idea of “being receptive”. The focus is not on what is being told, but on how. Which movements, which sensations give form.
- Having this voice to guide one’s gaze invites us to question our spontaneous way of looking and reveals what catches our eye. By extension, what we are sensitive to.
- Audio description suggests a direction but does not overwhelm the imagination, leaving room for interpretation.
- The connection to the present moment brought about by live description is invaluable. Seizing the moment, being seized by it.
- The aim is to explore these observations further and share them through an installation designed to open up new perspectives on how we perceive the moving body and/or how we look at it.

The core material of the installation is the audio description of individual improvisation sequences by 12 dancers. Traces of these moments will constitute the mediums, which I call fragments, through which the audience will encounter each person. Each of these mediums has the same value, all drawing on the descriptive text without necessarily having the same content. A fragment reveals a point of view. It offers a specific descriptive angle, situated within a defined layer.

Angle: Part of the body, space, dynamics
Defined: Visible, perceptible, potential
Mellina Boubetra

Direction artistique : Mellina Boubetra
Audiodescription : Julie Compans
Texte : Julie Compans & Mellina Boubetra
Composition musicale : Patrick De Oliveira & Mellina Boubetra
Vidéo : Raphaël Stora
Interprètes : Jerson Diasonama, Marion Morlier, Karima El Amrani, Mathilde Lin, Romain Di Franco, Victor Kastel, Anaïs Mauri, Antoine Descanuelle, Audric Chauvin, Cassandre Muñoz, Ikimi Togawa, James Gallego Olivo
Production déléguée : Cie Art-Track
Coproductions : Pole Sud Centre de Développement Chorégraphique Nationale Strasbourg, CCN De Créteil et du Val-De-Marne, EMKA, CCNRB Collectif Fair-e Rennes, L’Avant-Seine Colombes, Initiatives d’Artistes en Danses Urbaines – Fondation de France – La Villette 2024, 2angles
Soutien : DRAC Ile-de-France
Partenaires : Points communs – Scène nationale Cergy-Pontoise / Val d’Oise, ROYAUMONT – abbaye & fondation, ENSAPC – Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Arts Paris-Cergy, La Briqueterie CDCN du Val-de-Marne, Centre national de la danse, Passages Transfestival – Metz, Teatro do Bairro Alto, Les Halles de Schaerbeek, Arsenic – Centre d’art scénique contemporain, De Singel, Le Maillon