The new director of the Maison de la danse de Lyon, Tiago Guedes, loves resolutely contemporary dance. The least we can say is that the 2023 vintage of the Lyon Biennale – although eclectic – reflects this inclination. Liberté Cathédrale, the latest creation by Boris Charmatz with the Tanztheater Wuppertal, is entirely in this spirit, even if some purists will still find it too mainstream. Attention newbies!

Before arriving in Lyon, this work was presented in a most surprising setting: the Neviges Cathedral, one of the highest places of worship in Germany, erected in the 1960s in a brutalist style, and designed to accommodate thousands of pilgrims who flocked to this sanctuary. The very essence of this work draws its roots, its strength and its power from this extraordinary place, both grandiose and minimalist. The choreography accompanies this space, with the danger of fading into the more common space of a theater stage.

In Neviges, the dancers moved in the heart of the transept and the audience, arranged around them. The curtain rises on the troupe launched into a seemingly disorderly mad chase. The first image of the artists running and singing a few notes of a Beethoven sonata is very impressive. Race punctuated by long silences. Then will come the bells, then the silences again, and to finish a final scene with an organ spitting out its decibels (earplugs recommended).

The allusions to the cathedral are permanent, and the dance only exists thanks to this omnipresence. As if, in a place that encourages introspection, dance itself only existed to help everyone find oneself… or escape from it.

Lyon Dance Biennale, until September 30.