Clément Layes

Please tell us about your piece ?ALLEGE?.

The title ?ALLEGE? means that a ?no? can be a ?yes?, a mop in a puddle pool is poetry and that perception is something bigger and that it makes sense.

What are the influences and motivation for the creation of this piece?

I?m very interested in Spinoza?s way of developing ideas in his ?Ethic: demonstrated in geometrical order?. I tried to create a kind of similar system, where everything is overlapping in many ways and layers, showing always new combinations while the development goes on. Then I took everything that came in my way and I found interesting in relation to my topic. The last inspiration came from Merleau-Ponty: "a no that is a yes", for him the philosophical definition of a revolution.

How would you describe the process of producing?

The work on ?ALLEGE? has started in 2004. I worked on it as a quarto, a duo and a trio, now it?s a solo. From the beginning on it was a way to explore anxiety I have in regard to social, economic and ecologic problems. That?s why I choose to be very constrained bodywise. With the time it developed into a more philosophical approach. In that sense it remains always open and it?s much more fun to perform. I?m not dealing with ready-made questions, I allow myself to look for them in the specific stage setting. Therefore I don?t really rehearse, I?m more researching configuration or setting that might give me some freedom or surprise me.

What is dance for you and in relation to the contemporary tendencies you see on international stages?

It?s an impossible question, I can maybe answer it with negations: dance is not philosophy, not gymnastic, not theatre, not a rock concert, not science experiment, not poetry, it?s not only about the body, not only about the movement, not only about the idea. As a general statement about contemporary dance I feel the pressure to come up with something ?new? all the time. As a matter of fact I go to see a performance with the expectation of being surprised or challenged. But at the same time it becomes a new form of conservatism, as new always becomes boring. To avoid this paradigm, when I work I don?t ask myself about what´s happening in the dance world, I try to create questions to be addressed, but somehow I?m influenced by the things I see and hear, mostly in a negative way: as a consequence I conclude it is not interesting anymore, it?s done.

Does it still make sense to create performances in this 21st century of overconsumption at that "old" places called the theatre?

Theatre is one of the most amazing places on earth, everything is virtually possible. Whatever is the actual space, a living room or Sophiensaele, it creates this situation of live performances, that might be set but is always different. It has to do with the aura of the live thing. And next to that is this enormous marketing machine that distributes packages of ready-made thought. I find the theatre much more exciting. How we define ourselves by consuming and producing leads us into various actions. ?ALLEGE? is dealing a lot with that, representation have tendencies to get into a fixed form. Often we don?t perceive, but we just recognize. I?m playing with this: habits and expectation.

Kurzbio

Clément Layes (1978, Frankreich) studierte zeitgenössischen Tanz (CNR, CNSMD) und arbeitete mit Boris Charmatz (Bocal) und Odile Duboc. Er produziert seine eigenen Arbeiten, Kompositionen und Improvisationen und gründete 2008 ?Public in private? in Berlin.

Aufführungen: 4.1.2010 und 5.1.2010 jeweils um 19:00 Uhr im Hochzeitssaal