One of Switzerland’s most talented choreographers, winner of the 2023 Swiss Grand Award for Performing Arts / Hans Reinhart Ring, Cindy Van Acker presents her new creation, a duet in an empty space that reveals the bare theatre.
Cindy Van Acker entered Quiet Light inspired by the works of the Flemish painter Leon Spilliaert. From his canvases, she retains the abyss of vaporous horizons, the ink of the night, the restrained power of seascapes and unusual appearances. Stéphanie Bayle and Daniela Zaghini evolve in a space where things weave with evanescence. Underlying this work is the idea of the unfinished, the feeling of the irrelevant, and the serene acceptance that everything is in vain: a sort of search for an apogee of the ephemeral, which is the true power of a live performance.
The Swiss choreographer finds in the words of Paul Auster a state of being that resonates with the poetic tone of the piece: “Something happens and from the moment it begins to happen, nothing can ever be the same again. Something happens, or else something does not happen. A body moves, or else it does not move. And if it moves something begins to happen. And even if it does not move, something begins to happen. It comes from my voice and yet these words will never be what happens. It comes and goes. If I happen to be speaking at this moment, it is only because I hope to find a way of going alone. Of running parallel to everything else that is going along and so begin to find a way of filling the silence without breaking it.”
