2022-2023

S.thala

Sthala (स्थल) a sanskrit word meaning :  the place, the space, the room.

Production schedule: The team met in Kerala for the first creative workshops in November 2019. An out-of-residence presentation was organized by the Alliance Française and the Bharat Bhavan in Trivandrum at the end of this first period of work. April, May and August 2021: Annette and Hélène continue the preparatory workshops at Arta, Cartoucherie de Vincennes, Paris. December, January 2022: rehearsal camp and residency in Trivandrum. 2022: Tour in the Alliances Françaises de l'Inde as part of the Bonjour India festival organized by the French Embassy January: Trivandrum, Cochin, Chennai March: Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Pune, Delhi, May 2023: Théâtre du Soleil Paris.

2022

All India tour

January 2022, March 2022

Trivandrum, Cochin, Chennai, Mumbai, Pune, Delhi

Ambassade de France en Inde, Institut Français Inde, Réseau Alliances Françaises en Inde


S.thala


An Indian Suite


(Based on the work of Marguerite Duras)


A choreographic study by the Annette Leday/Keli company

Creation 2022


Conception: Annette Leday, Hélène Courvoisier


Direction and choreography: Annette Leday


With


Hélène Courvoisier

Kalamandalam Unnikrishnan Nair

Sadanam Manikandan

Annette Leday



Texts: excerpts from Marguerite Duras' L'Amour

 

Writer, playwright, screenwriter and film director, Marguerite Duras (1914-1996) is one of the great figures of the French literary and artistic world. In her multiform corpus, the texts and films of the "Indian cycle" occupy a central and singular place. Intrigued by the parallel between the fantasized India that forms the backdrop of this cycle and the very real one at the heart of our company’s work, we propose to conduct a study of the Durassian universe through a danced interpretation of her organic writing.

The choreographic writing: To immerse oneself in the work of Marguerite Duras is to enter into a sort of enigma and to try figure the meaning of her many variations. To let oneself be carried away by the flow of a mysteriously bewitching minimalist writing. It is through the body and the movements of dance that we choose to testify to this writing. In L'Amour, sentences are short and simple, often repetitive with many details of movements and places. Creating a contemporary dance performance is a bit like writing a poem. In S.Thala we examine the pieces of Duras' puzzle without trying to reproduce or illustrate the complex narrative schemes of her text. Our choreography explores the complex relationships and emotions of the "characters" and the emblematic atmospheres of her universe.

S.thala 2023 Engl.pdf

For the first time in an Indian language: L'Amour de Marguerite Duras translated into Malayalam by Prof Sreedevi K. Nair! A prefiguration to our forthcoming new production S.Thala inspired by Marguerite Duras text.