Low Pieces

A pack of wolves and swaying seaweed

A group of naked bodies moving, crawling across the stage; the group breaks apart and constantly forms new formations. It appears ‘fluid’. Sometimes these creatures remind one of a herd, a pack of wolves or a family of lions. Then swaying plants or seaweed again. One thing is certain: our traditional conception of the human body is undermined, as the absence of clothes makes it even more difficult for us to identify who or what these creatures are.

Since his solo Self Unfinished (1998), the transformation of the body on stage and the transformation of the perception of the spectator who looks at that body has been one of the main points of focus for the French choreographer Xavier Le Roy. Low Pieces is the result of several periods of work, in which Le Roy and many of the dancers and choreographers on stage with him have assembled material. At the Kaaitheater, Low Pieces will performed in the version that was staged at the Avignon Festival in the summer of 2011.

The dance performance begins and ends with a conversation marked out in time: between the performers themselves and between the performers and the audience. Le Roy sees movements and words as complementary. Conversation comprises not only spoken sentences, but also gestures, concentration and attention while listening, and the energy that flows back and forth. The final conversation takes place in the dark so that the strength and timbre of the voice comes to the fore. Using minimal theatrical resources – the light just goes on and off, the sounds are made by the performers themselves, etc. – the group creates images with a bizarre beauty and links them to ‘a little exercise in democracy’ between actors and the audience.