Borderline

Running time: 70 min
Creation 2013
Wang Ramirez - Borderline

Borderline

Running time: 70 min
Creation 2013
A choreography by Sébastien Ramirez and Honji Wang for six performers.
Original music by LACRYMOBOY.

Borderline marks a turning point in Sébastien Ramirez and Honji Wang’s research and choreographic language. The dance evolves into a dialogue between technique and the art of rigging, reflecting on human relationships that now include the reality of living together in our democracies. Social boundaries are evoked by the interplay of physical forces on the stage as well as through testimonies - collected from the dancers’ friends and relatives, or from the media, and broadcasted in voice over.

The rigging element, a scenic tool notorious as Deus Ex Machina in the Greek tragedy, allows us to approach weightlessness to create a timeless poetics. In the interaction with the rigger, the body becomes the object of a “weight game”, of balance and freedom. Attached to cables, the five dancers bring to light and transpose the desire of freedom inherent in all forms of dance, especially Hip Hop. With a wealth of experience in levitation, Hip Hop discovers new ways to thwart gravity in its virtuosity of footwork.

The gestures and the costumes create images that reflect Greek and Korean traditions in animality, as well as in our desires and angsts. Between the promise of freedom and the violence of keeping our bodies on the ground, is a space allowing the invention of a new gestural approach. With great fluidity, the piece displays accents of acrobatics, visual poetry and the urban universe. It extends to the ground where the gravitational borderlines shift horizontally, in a mobile scenography that continues to evolve throughout the performance.

"The contemporary dance revolution is taking place. And dancers like Sébastien Ramirez and Honji Wang are on the frontlines."

L’Indépendant

“It isn’t enough for Borderline to just be awesome to watch. It opens itself up like hip-hop knows how to do.”
Le Monde

Wang Ramirez - 1 © Frank Szafinski
Wang Ramirez - 2 © Fred Fouché
Wang Ramirez - 3 © Fred Fouché
Wang Ramirez - 4 © Fred Fouché
Wang Ramirez - 5 Photo by Richard Termine, courtesy of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts
Wang Ramirez - 6 Photo by Richard Termine, courtesy of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts
Wang Ramirez - 7 Photo by Richard Termine, courtesy of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts
Wang Ramirez - 8 Photo by Richard Termine, courtesy of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts
Wang Ramirez - 9 Photo by Richard Termine, courtesy of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts
Wang Ramirez - 10 Photo by Richard Termine, courtesy of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts
Wang Ramirez - 11
Wang Ramirez - 12 © Fred Fouché
Wang Ramirez - 13 © Frank Szafinski
Wang Ramirez - 14 © Frank Szafinski
Wang Ramirez - 15 © Frank Szafinski
Wang Ramirez - 16 © Frank Szafinski
Wang Ramirez - 17 © Frank Szafinski
Wang Ramirez - 18 © Fred Fouché
Wang Ramirez - 19 © Fred Fouché
Wang Ramirez - 20 © Fred Fouché
Wang Ramirez - 21 © Fred Fouché
Wang Ramirez - 22 Photo by Richard Termine, courtesy of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts

Artistic direction & choreography: Honji Wang & Sébastien Ramirez
Performers: Mehdi Baki or Sébastien Ramirez, Louis Becker, Johanna Faye, Joy Alpuerto Ritter or Honji Wang, Kai Gaedtke, Saïdo Lehlouh
Rigging development: Jason Oettlé and Kai Gaedtke
Composition : LACRYMOBOY
Light design: Cyril Mulon
Dramaturgical collaboration : Catherine Umbdenstock
Set design: Paul Bauer
Costume realization: Anna Ramirez
Creation producer in 2013: Dirk Korell
Executive production : Compagnie Wang Ramirez, Clash66


Co-production

L'Archipel, scène nationale de Perpignan (in the frame of a creation residency)
Théâtre de la Ville, Paris
Parc de La Villette, Paris
Mercat de les Flors (in the frame of a creation residency at Graner, Barcelone)
Initiatives d'Artistes en Danses Urbaines (Fondation de France – Parc de la Villette with the support of Caisse des Dépôts and Acsé)
Act'art – Conseil général de Seine-et-Marne
Centre Chorégraphique National de Créteil et du Val-de-Marne / Company Käfig
TANZtheater INTERNATIONAL, Hannover

Support

Regional council Occitanie / Pyrénées-Méditerranée
Regional Cultural Affairs Directorate Occitanie
County council Pyrénées Orientales

Thanks!

Centre Culturel Jacques Prévert à Villeparisis for the creation residency.
HAU – Hebbel am Ufer for the research possibilities in Berlin.
With the support of Montpellier Danse, residency at Agora, cité internationale de la danse.

The original soundtrack of Borderline is available on lacrymoboy.bandcamp.com and on iTunes (artist: LACRYMOBOY).