Orbo Novo
Artistic director Benoit-Swan Pouffer has a knack for cluing in New Yorkers to what has the European dance scene buzzing. Next week, the company performs in the city for the first time outside of its home theater, introducing a full-evening work by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, a Belgian choreographer with a considerable European reputation, whose dances have only begun to be known here. Orbo Novo marks the first time he has worked with an American company, and all indications are that this collaboration has been marked by a rich, open exchange of ideas.
First performed in July at the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, Orbo Novo features a striking and dominant set (by Alexander Dodge) consisting of four large brick red latticed walls that glide around in shifting configurations that frame and divide the stage picture. Its original score, for chamber ensemble (performed live), is by Polish composer Szymon Brzóska.
Cherkaoui, 33, was born to a Flemish mother and a Moroccan father, and has often explored cross-cultural issues. This was particularly true in zero degrees, his collaboration with Akram Khan, seen at City Center last year. In it, Cherkaoui’s amazingly flexible body slithered through unexpected, surprising shapes. His most recent project, unveiled last May in London, was created with the Buddhist monks of the Shaolin Temple in China.
Orbo Novo takes its title is based from what is believed to be the first reference, in 1493, to North America as “the New World.” Cherkaoui’s extended residency with the Cedar Lake dancers represented an immersion in a new world for him. The resulting piece incorporates ideas and concerns that fascinated Cherkaoui, incorporating his interactions with New York City itself as well as with the 18 Cedar Lake dancers. “It’s natural for me to try to adapt, and find ways of reflecting my impressions. Sometimes I’m not even aware of what is going to come out,” Cherkaoui said recently, speaking from Austria, where he had a performance shortly before returning to New York.
“In the beginning I gave them a lot of information to express how I felt about movement—that it was something that needed to resonate within the whole body, that it was very anchored in the floor, that there is a sense of recycling of energy, and that it needs to keep flowing all the time. There’s something quite organic, very animal-like as well.”
He familiarized himself with the Cedar Lake repertory, before beginning his process with them. “I really wanted to have a sense of he company’s history, so that I realized what I could bring in that is another step within their own evolution. I felt like the dancers were really very open and non-judgmental, which is fantastic. They just went all the way into every single detail. They’re extremely gifted, technically amazing, very open-minded and very creative.”
A significant element in the creation of Orbo Novo was Cherkaoui’s encounter with Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor’s memoir about her 1996 stroke as well as a lecture, available online, in which she describes the experience and explains the contrasting functions of the brain’s left and right hemispheres. In an extended, meticulously timed opening section, the dancers speak her words, sharing the text between them as they perform quietly unsettling movements, which are adapted from Taylor’s own gestures. “In that lecture, she basically re-lives her experience as she tells it to an audience. I was extremely moved when I saw it; it haunted me,” Cherkaoui said.
“What she’s basically saying is: the more you are open-minded to the present moment, and not with all this baggage, the more you can be at peace with everything around you. I thought that was a beautiful message. That is really what performance is about: being totally open-minded, letting it happen, not coming with too many expectations. For me, it’s as much about society as it is about what’s happening within your own brain. The two cannot be disconnected.”
For Cherkaoui, the ever-evolving set—which can entrap the dancers, forcing them to climb or grope through its openings, or break apart to allow for open space—resonates on both those levels. “In the beginning, we were trying to generate a sense of the city, [of] its streets being so square and also the experience of coming into this country as a foreigner with an Arab name. It’s like going through a maze. Once Dr. Taylor’s text became an element, the set became as much about the connections within the brain. The city functions like the brain: there are borders, but at the same time, everything is connected.”
> Orbo Novo
Oct. 20-25, Joyce Theater, 175 8th Ave. (at W. 19 St.), 212-242-0800; times vary, $10-$49.
