With this new solo, Taos Bertrand reactivates the mythological figure of the nymph. Dismembered and transformed into stone, she is traditionally associated with the ghostly or spectral. Taos Bertrand chooses instead to restore both her body and her meaning through an instinctive, pulsating physical language, traversed by three recurring forces: “rupture, echo, and grace.” Nymphe offers an anatomy of a philosophical, aesthetic, and political canon in the contemporary world.
Described by Ovid as “hidden beneath dense foliage,” the choreographer-performer enters the stage with her hands concealing her face. She is almost invisible, yet paradoxically hypervisible on a brightly illuminated stage. Through mimed gestures of cutting that draw moans from her body, she evokes both violence and pleasure, life and death.
“I’m seeking to work within a state of extreme affect. This nymph is caught in a kind of continuous flow, like an electrocardiogram.”
“It is said of the nymph Echo that she is nothing but the sound that lives within her. I was interested in allowing my body to become a site where sonic impulses are translated, as though I were intensely receptive to the sounds of the stage. In that space, I feel we come close to something that belongs to the realm of echo a form of contemporary lyricism that deeply interests me.”
Furtive and melancholic, Taos Bertrand’s nymph embraces the challenge of an enchanted becoming-sound.
Nymphe ou nymphes ? Taos Bertrand danse ici différentes corporalités et métamorphoses depuis un répertoire multi-référentiel. Bruits, RnB, poème et musique électronique se succèdent et les images que provoquent la danse sont elles aussi hétérogènes.
“The nymph sheds her skin behind her; she is a body that folds and unfolds, existing in a state of almost constant morphing.”
She is a siren, the faun from Nijinsky’s repertoire, and perhaps a lecturer lip-syncing. Without turning the work into a statement on identity politics, Taos Bertrand draws on a distinctly transfeminine materiality to question the female body its beauty, its grace, and the ways it is performed on stage.
NYMPHE
Created at KLAP as part of the + DE GENRES festival.
Premiere: Tuesday, 11 March, 8:30 p.m.
Duration: 45 minutes
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