Yohan Vallée

Cie Appel d’Air

Abwarten

Residence

June 10 to 14, 2024

CCNR's dance studio

As part of Matières Premières

Here, on the steps, a group waits. In the distance, we can make out a song. Nearby, we hear a breath, a shout, a laugh. All around, time no longer exists. The space is multi-faceted, and could very well be a station platform, the front of a hospital or the entrance to a house. The beings present put the frenzy of the world on pause. Alert and powerful, they wait. In a society of instantaneous, alienating immediacy, what does it mean to wait today? What role does waiting play in our daily lives? How does it affect our relationship with others and with ourselves?

In Abwarten (literally waiting for nothing), the performers let the emulsion of a community emerge as they wait for an event, a moment. Or of nothing. In an age where time is nowhere to be found, this suspended state of being allows the performers to identify the greatest expectations, the unspoken hopes and the most cherished desires of each individual. Starting from a common home instilled by the collective, the piece shows each performer asserting his or her singularity within the entity, searching for his or her object of expectation and expressing it fully. The tension of a group moving forward, tending towards an elsewhere, and the vibrancy of the individualities interfering and exploring their own intimate paths are all at once apparent.

Waiting as observation. Waiting as relationship.

This ensemble, made up of men and women aged 30 to 60, reflects the need to make bodies visible in their multiplicity, to assert fragilities that become strengths, and thus become a virtuous reflection of a disproportionately impetuous world. To measure which parts of their bodies are on standby, waiting for an answer, a question or attention. For as soon as an expectation arises, an end is sketched out, hoped for, perhaps feared, but fully experienced. A pure truth is born of the moment, of life as it passes and of the encounter with the other. An uncertain but necessary event.

Abwarten represents a brigade immersed in a dual ambition: to erase modern epilepsy and reach a reality in which everyone is fond of an eccentric time and euphoric otherness.

It will be about watching the silence.
It will be about building an aftermath.
It will be about cherishing particular things.
It will be about making bodies wait that are not expected.

- Yohan Vallée

Biography

Yohan Vallée

Choreographer and performer, Yohan Vallée trained in theater and dance in Paris with Nadia Vadori Gauthier and continued his training in Belgium with Quan Bui Ngoc & Lisi Estaras at Ballets C de la B. In 2017, he founded the Tours-based company Appel d'Air, with the solo Un certain printemps. Between 2020 and 2022, he collaborates with Jeanne Alechinsky to create the duet Mon vrai métier, c'est la nuit (co-winner of La Grande Scène des PSO 2020) and the trio Porte vers moi tes pas, with musician Stéphane Milochevitch. In 2023, he begins work on Une autre histoire, a solo for the stage and non-dedicated spaces, and provides artistic direction for the company's first group piece, Abwarten, scheduled for September 2024.

With these two new creations, he continues his choreographic research around the four main axes of physicality, musicality, vulnerability and uniqueness. In parallel, he performs in Belgium for Lisi Estaras & Ido Batash (MonkeyMind Company/Ballets C de la B) in The Jewish Connection Project, Senza Fine by Gaia Saitta and in Switzerland for choreographer Simon Fleury in Topia. Since 2017, he has been giving dance workshops to audiences in the medico-social and adult fields. At the end of 2022, he was invited by Danse À tous les Étages to take part in the CRÉATIVES project.

More information on the Cie Appel d'Air website.

Demo: Thursday, June 13, 2024 at 7:30 pm
Free with reservation: adriana.falcone@ccnr.fr

→ Yohan Vallée will lead the Sentir La Fibre workshop on Monday, June 10, 2024.

Premieres: September 27 + 28, 2024 at L’étoile du nord, Paris, as part of the Avis de Turbulences Festival

Distribution

Creation & interpretation: Thalia Otmanetelba, Lucie Raimbault, Ingrid Tegyey, Yohan Vallée, Victor Virnot
Concept & choreography: Yohan Vallée
Sound design: David Hess
Light design & stage management: Virginie Galas
Costume design: Anna Carraud
Set design: Léo Lévy-Lajeunesse
Touring: Matthieu Roger / La Belle Orange
Production: Appel d’Air

Length: 55 min

Coproduction: Centre chorégraphique national de Tours, direction Thomas Lebrun ; Centre chorégraphique national de Rillieux-la-Pape, direction Yuval PICK, dans le cadre du dispositif Accueil-Studio ; L’étoile du nord, Scène Conventionnée d’intérêt national art et création pour la danse et les écritures contemporaines, Paris ; Théâtre d’Orléans, scène nationale

Partners: KLAP, Maison pour la danse, Marseille ; Le Silo, Méreville ; Louhenrie, Pouillé ; La Pratique, Vatan ; La Ruche en mouvement / Abbaye de Corbigny ; Oésia, Notre-Dame-d’Oé
Supports: La Région Centre-Val de Loire au titre du Parcours de Production Solidaire 2023 et de l’aide à la création 2024.