Ofaett
"Ofaett" is the fruit of an intuitive creative process between four artists : the dancers and choreographers Erna Omarsdottir and Damien Jalet, the plastician Gabriela Fridriksdottir and the fashion designer Raven.
"Ofaett" is inspired by the concept of "élan vital" introduced by the french philosopher and nearly mystical Henry Bergson (1859-1941).
This "vital impulse" is the creative and unpredictable process which organises the bodies, it goes through the force that enters the material and introduces the indeterminability and freedom. The "élan vital" explains the evolution of life.
"Ofaett" is in a certain way a solo for two bodies exploring the logic of evolution as Bergson conceives it, a world where the human is not yet or not anymore clearly defined, an ode to the chaos and the pre-civilisation archaic.
Exploring the themes of birth, survival-instinct, mutation, sexual reversibility, death... Damien Jalet and Erna Omarsdottir develop here an intuitive and non-academical movement research combining voice and strong physicality. In collaboration with the musician Tape Tum, they draw a landscape of sounds, movements and imagery, creating a personal mythology of beginnings of time.
As if they were made of clay, they constantly and playfuly transform themselves in unpredictable metamorphoses, trying to stretch their bodies as far as they can form their original human shape and condition.
"Ofaett" dives into the materiality we are made of to extract from it other possibilities where the animal, the vegetable, the human, the masculine and the feminine cross, marry and oppose each other to give birth to a kind of geography of our undefined inner fields.
PREMIERE
9th November 2005 Festival Mettre en Scène Théâtre National de Bretagne, Rennes
Also shown in Rennes, Dusseldorf, Bordeaux, Dro (Italy), Salamanca (Spain), Roubaix...
CREDITS
CONCEPTION & CREATION
Erna Omarsdottir
Damien Jalet
Gabriela Fridriksdottir
Raven
CHOREOGRAPHERS & PERFORMERS
Erna Omarsdottir
Damien Jalet
CHOREOGRAPHY COLLABORATOR
Alexandra Gilbert
MUSIC & SOUNDSCAPE
Tape Tum (Lieven & Benjamin Dousselaere)
LIGHT DESIGNER
Ronan Gabon
PRODUCTION & DISTRIBUTION
Esther Welger-Barboza
ASSISTED BY
Association "Mischto"
Maud Cattiaux
CO-PRODUCTION
Théâtre National de Bretagne - Rennes,
Tanzhaus nrw Düsseldorf, SW&G
Sacha Waltz & Guest.