They entered the studio. Ludmila Pagliero, Stéphane Bullion, stars of the Paris Opera ballet, and Mats Ek, brilliant choreographer. Seated, Alexandre Lacroix, philosopher and novelist, watched, in the posture of the butterfly hunter so stunned by the grace of these creatures that he had to understand their enigma. The beauty of it is that he does it with capital delicacy.
More clumsy people would have caught the creatures and pinned them to a box with a Latin label. He observes their volutes. Probe their origins and their routes. Avoid as much as possible placing theories on what he sees that would tarnish the shine of those he observes. The title of his work, The Dance-Philosophy of the Body in Movement, displays the seriousness of an entomologist. Let the readers rest assured. The philosopher just gives the lie: he who juggles with ideas and concepts, admits, quite happily: “I’m a little ashamed of myself when I move. I feel like I have to overcome my self-esteem and be willing to make fun of myself. » Whereas since the dawn of time, humans have danced, without even knowing how.
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Where does dance live? Where can you find it in yourself? Alexandre Lacroix compares what he knows about the theory of movement to the practice of the two stars. How can we distinguish dance from sport or reflex movement? How can we define this ambiguous art that produces no object? “Dance is the set of voluntary movements which have their end in themselves and which unfold first in time,” he poses after having surveyed Aristotle and Paul Valéry. While Kleist provides another key: “ The affectation appears when the soul is located in a point other than the center of gravity of the movement. »
Meanwhile, on the stage of the Palais Garnier, Ludmila Pagliero shines. The star, born into a disadvantaged family in Buenos Aires, forced his destiny. She passed through Chile and New York, staying for her Parisian debut in a shared accommodation in a maid’s room on the Champs-Élysées, with a single bed for three. His life resembles The Odyssey. Trials, spells, anger, dizziness, risk-taking and a succession of bets. Alexandre Lacroix recounts them but also describes her working in the studio with Mats Ek on Another Place. We learn how he warms up before rehearsal, and how his particular gestures integrate everyday life: “Swimming in the void, washing your hands, fleeing a sudden danger as if a wild boar had just appeared. »
The author adds a reflection on memorization, a question on interpretation, a presentation on the way in which the second casts learn from the first. Under the pretext of philosophizing, Alexandre Lacroix studies the details that surprise him. We are grateful to him for thus filling this sidereal void which surrounds the stars: “The dancer is notoriously non-verbal,” wrote the American choreographer Doris Humphrey.
Dance. Philosophy of the body in movement, by Alexandre Lacroix, Allary Éditions, 244 pages €20.90.
