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Journalism of Courage
“One of our goals is to make the audience forget that they are in a theatre, that there are walls and the floor. We aim for the feeling that we are just floating in the universe,” says Xuan Le, an award-winning contemporary dancer and choreographer from France.
Le is on a tour of India with a performance, Reflet, a piece that explores the idea of how we, as individuals, meet another and find a balance with the other and with different parts of ourselves. Reflet is a part of a trilogy that began with Loop, which was about our origins, and will end with a work-in-progress piece, Path, which explores our connection with what we cannot see. “The three shows are made to talk about the different dimensions that we are around,” says Le.
Reflet has been brought here by the French Institute in India in collaboration with the Alliance Française network. It will be presented at Kalagram, PL Deshpande Garden on Sinhagad Road on December 6th at 7.30pm. The Pune Municipal Corporation is supporting this show.
The performance will begin with a lighting sphere that can represent a star, a planet or a molecule as the piece sets the tone, talking about birth, how we arrive on Earth, discover our bodies and start moving away from our past. Dance, hip-hop, roller skating and visual arts meld with movement, scenography, presence, and silence. Le is joined on stage by choreographer and dancer Shihya Peng and the piece explores the fundamental ideas of Reflet– how do they meet each other and move together. “There will be some fight, there will also be some time of peace,” says Le.
Le was five years old when he entered a competition in inline skates, freestyle slalom. He started taking classes in hip hop and dancing and mixing it with skating. At the age of 19, he started to become a professional dancer. His group, Compagnie Xuan Le, was set up in 2016 and works in the intersection of styles, ranging from free style and contemporary dance to street dance, circus movements, scenography and visual expression.
It will be Le’s first time in Pune, but he has been to India before. Two years ago, he performed in parts of the country, including Mumbai, and, after the tour, stayed back to explore the culture. Born and raised in France, Le is of Vietnamese and Spanish descent. “I have Asian roots so I was very interested in India. Indian culture is a big part of Asian culture,” he says. This time, he would like to visit the Ramamani Iyengar Memorial Yoga Institute. “I have been practising Iyengar Yoga for 15 years and there are influences of it in my dance,” he says.
He is fascinated by the precision and narrative forms of Indian classical dance. “In contemporary dance, an artist gets inspired by every movement we see. I draw upon my experiences but pieces, such as Reflet, are open to audiences to claim as their own story. People feel the story and interpret it how they want. They link it with what they have experienced in their own lives,” says the dancer.
