takemehome
in collaboration with kim gordon
takemehome was born in Los Angeles, from the long hours that Dimitri Chamblas spent driving at night on his way back from a high-security prison located outside Hollywood where he leads workshops. Like the major metropolises of the world, LA has eliminated pedestrian traffic and with it, the misery and the underworld population that accompanied it. At night, this world of asphalt, barely illuminated, allows ghosts and strange silhouettes to sometimes emerge. Dimitri Chamblas envisions an entire imaginary world of human forms based on these absences, for which he convenes new fictions.
By sacrificing human interaction in a sea of asphalt, this city has also given rise to new states of fear and the fear of the other. It is this other side of Hollywood, less glamorous perhaps but more anchored in reality that runs through this proposal.
takemehome gathers a team of nine dancers met on different continents, continues the dialogue already begun with the artist and musician Kim Gordon, and invites Yves Godin to invent a lighting device. Dimitri Chamblas has chosen to set aside the certainty of composition that would highlight virtuosity, and to trust the performers instead. For each one of them possesses considerable baggage and a knowledge of the stage that allows for all postures, from silence to excess. The whole thing takes place in a joyful twilight and, as is the case when children play at scaring each other in a dimly lit room, the shadows project another world as grotesque as it is disturbing. The dancers circulate in different states, exchange gestures in an almost organic way and, with five electric guitars, they take shape under a luminous zeppelin for dance escapes, before disappearing, temporarily swallowed by the darkness.
Dressed in dark clothing, these shadowy extras brought back to anonymity reveal themselves to be as energetic as they are melancholic, evoking a forgotten world and perhaps the traces of a happiness that has been erased. Beauty emerges from the beyond black, one must go through these nuances for the show to tend towards an ode to the forgotten shadows of the great metropolises.
Kim Gordon's score accompanies the vital impulse that the performers give off on stage. Armed with electric guitars, they fear neither feedback nor disappearance to create a community that intends to put up a fight before slipping away to an elsewhere.
“The who, what, when, where, why of the work was, for the most part, left up to one’s imagination, yet still made for a must-see performance”
- Best Of Dance 2023, Fjord Review
“ I utlized the time that had been offered to also keep digging into this relation between dance and music, but also through kim’s culture, which is very different from my dance culture "
Dimitri Chamblas for All Arts Magazine
l’echo
Dimitri Chamblas et Kim Gordon: "Takemehome", la danse du monde
Office Hours:
takemehome
NYU Visiting Professor Katherine Helen Fisher and Dimitri Chamblas shared a conversation around pedagogy, technology, the cosmos and the stories and experiences that served as inspiration for this new creation.
[2023] October 5 & 6, Charleroi Danse, Charleroi, Belgium as part of the Charleroi Danse Biennale ; October 11 & 12, Les Halles de Schaerbeek, Brussels, Belgium ; November 5, Cine Bujazán, Tijuana, Mexico ; November 8 & 9, REDCAT, Los Angeles, United States ; November 11, Cowell Theater at Fort Mason - San Francisco, United States ; November 17 & 18, NYU Skirball Center, New York, United States as part of Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels. US TOUR dates OF TAKEMEHOME ARE PART OF the 2023 ALBERTINE DANCE SEASON.
choreography - DIMITRI CHAMBLAS ; music - KIM GORDON ; cast - MARION BARBEAU, MARISSA BROWN, ELI COHEN, BRYANA FRITZ, PIERRICK JACQUART, FRANÇOIS MALBRANQUE, JOBEL MEDINA, SALIA SANOU, KENSAKU SHINOHARA ; lighting - YVES GODIN in collaboration with VIRGINIE MIRA for the device conception ; stage manager - JACK MCWEENY ; light tech - IANNIS JAPIOT ; sound tech - ANDREW MCKEAG OR Dimitri & manuel DEDONDER ; costumes - DIMITRI CHAMBLAS + ANDREALISSE LOPEZ ; production & distribution - STUDIO DIMITRI CHAMBLAS ; studio manager - ELODIE VITRANO ; production assistant - NATALIA GÓNGORA ; coproduction - CHARLEROI DANSE - CENTRE CHORÉGRAPHIQUE DE LA FÉDÉRATION WALLONIE-BRUXELLES ; MONTPELLIER DANSE as part of the RESIDENCY AT THE AGORA, CITÉ INTERNATIONALE DE LA DANSE, with the support of the BNP PARIBAS FOUNDATION ; VILLA ALBERTINE ; LIQUID MUSIC MINNEAPOLIS ; THE SHARON DISNEY LUND SCHOOL OF DANCE CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF THE ARTS.
With the support of DANCE REFLECTIONS BY VAN CLEEF & ARPELS.
video - josh rose photography - josh rose, angel origgi
