L’Onde (The Wave)
Nacera Belaza
Past event
- Price
- $30*
- Genre
- Dance
- Season
- Fall 2023
- DATE
- OCT 19-21
- TIME
- THU-SAT, 8:30 PM
- RUNTIME
- Approx. 50 minutes, no intermission
- COUNTRY
- France
- Program
- Download Program Notes (PDF)
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About
Internationally revered for her powerfully abstract work, Nacera Belaza draws a path between shadow and light, seeking to glimpse the infinite. In L’Onde (The Wave), the French Algerian choreographer immerses herself in the spellbinding notions of Algerian ritualistic dances. With a hypnotic sound narrative and mesmerizing movement that blends tradition and modernity, the piece features four dancers who explore the body’s capacity for transformation through rigorous and elegantly minimalist choreography.
Please note: L’Onde (The Wave) contains loud sounds.
The program includes a post-performance talk on October 20 with Nacera Belaza.
[Nacera Belaza] explores the boundaries between embodied presence and the ecstatic emptiness toward which dance, and movement, can lead us.
—
Marian Harss, The New Yorker
Production: Compagnie Nacera Belaza.
Partners: Kunstenfestivaldesarts / Charleroi danse, centre chorégraphique de Wallonie-Bruxelles; Festival de Marseille; deSingel, Campus International des Arts; MC93 Bobigny; LUMA Foundation; ICI — Centre chorégraphique national Montpellier - Occitanie / Direction Christian Rizzo, as part of the creative and research residency programme; L’Arsenal- Cité musicale-Metz; Atelier de Paris / CDCN.
The company is supported by the LUMA - Arles foundation residency programme, as well as by the Ile-de-France Region in the framework of the Aide à la création programme.
Also supported by the SACD in the framework of the duo programme; Institut français - Ville de Paris, SPEDIDAM.
The performances of L’Onde by Compagnie Nacera Belaza are part of Albertine Dance Season and received support from Villa Albertine.
Nacera Belaza extends her deep respect and appreciation to Northern Cree for allowing their singing and drumming to be shared in the production of L’Onde.
CMT composed by Shane Dion, Marlon Deschamps, and Conan Yellowbird and performed by Northern Cree. Courtesy Canyon Records. Published by DMG Arizona (ASCAP).
about the artist
Nacera Belaza
Nacera Belaza was born in Médéa, Algeria. She moved to France at the age of 5. In 1989, she founded her own dance company. Self-taught, she entered dance driven by the necessity to express herself and unravel the complexity of a dual cultural background. Her language emerged from her confined body — somehow imprisoned by cultural constraints during childhood and adolescence — drawing first from inner material, and later on from literature.
To free yourself, you have to be right, accurate, and precise. You have to defy complacency and seduction. What Nacera Belaza is indeed choreographing is an inner journey. It’s about space, the inner emptiness, it’s about light and shadow, repetition and vertigo. Dance becomes an introspective vertical dive. Her movements are animated by a deep, serene, and continuous breath, relying on patience, rigor, and simplicity to face “the deafening din of our existences.” In her work, Belaza tries to give gesture back its existential role.
Her work, recognized and praised by the French Ministry of Culture, earned her the title of Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2015. In France, Nacera Belaza was awarded the Syndicat de la Critique Prize for her piece Le Cri and the SACD Choreographic Prize in 2017. In 2021, she was named one of the 100 Women of Culture by the French association Femmes de Culture.
She is associate artist to the Théâtre National de Chaillot in Paris and the MC93 in Bobigny. She regularly tours in Europe, Africa, Asia, and North America, performing in prestigious festivals and venues, such as the Avignon Festival and the Lyon Dance Biennale in France, the Kunstenfestivaldesarts in Brussels and DeSingel in Antwerp, the Vidy Theatre in Lausanne, Crossing the Line festival in New York, the Push festival in Vancouver. Nacera Belaza has also been regularly working in Algeria, developing training, residency, and touring programs.
cast & creative team
Choreography, Sound and Light Design by Nacera Belaza
Performed by Paulin Banc, Nacera Belaza, Mohammed Ech Charquaouy, Océane Valence
Technical Management by Christophe Renaud
