Mathilde Monnier: Twin paradox

The dancing star as the primal unit of every community is of central importance in this production: two people dancing, who keep on dancing, who hold one another, keep going in order to survive.

For Twin paradox, the French choreographer allowed herself to be inspired by the history of popular dance marathons in the U.S. at the end of the 1920s. On the verge of the Great Depression, these events became a profitable entertainment industry in which dance judges, trainers, and shady organizers soon set the tone. Often, these dances lasted for days, ending in collapse and crisis.

What fascinates Mathilde Monnier about this image of primal competition is the moment “in which dance creates its own world and develops a dramaturgy all its own that escapes real time.”

Luc Ferrari was a composer who made films and a filmmaker who composed. In his soundscapes, he used sounds from nature and our surroundings to create unusual aural images in which fragments of possible stories overlap, cross, and mix.