SIMPLE
AYELEN PAROLIN (BELGIUM)
20.05.2022, Boris Hristov House of Culture
Start: 7:30
What if we stop for a moment? What if we go slower?
While the world is becoming more and more complex due to pandemics, wars, technology, and crises, it seems we must keep catching up. In the overtaking pace of processes, there is not much time left for ourselves. But what if we stop for a moment? What if we go slower, live more casually, and take things less seriously?
It is the starting point of choreographer Ayelen Parolin’s presentation of contemporary dance in its simple and honest side. Without music, stage effects, and sets, her new piece comes out of the need to simplify life. This dance dandyism uses the comic and the absurd to reveal the simplest and most significant human dimensions.
The three performers dance on stage, extracting sounds and rhythms from their movements, gestures, and impulses, from their sincerity and spontaneity. Their naivety makes them sometimes comical, childishly naive, and even absurd. They dance free of scruples, a counterpoint to the talking heads and experts dominating our agenda, proving that even the most important work requires a dash of lightness and fun.
Born in Argentina and based in Belgium, Parolin incorporates humour and surprise into her choreographic work, which reminds us that anything is possible, from the ridiculous to the dreamlike.
REVIEWS
“Going to the root, removing everything that is not essential and arriving at a condensed, tight form, with the human being at the centre as the source of all possibilities” is Ayelen Parolin’s challenge for her new creation.”
– Scèneweb
“The Argentinian choreographer proposes a show stripped of any reference to the dance repertoire. A dada-inspired proposal that rejects all convention”.
– François Caudron, RTBF
AYELEN PAROLIN
A choreographer and a dancer, Ayelen Parolin lives and works in Brussels. Born in Argentina, she arrived in Europe in 2000 and trained in Montpellier. She then began a career as a performer which led her to collaborate with Mathilde Monnier, Jean-Francois Peyret, Mossoux-Bonté, Alexandra Bachzetsis, Mauro Paccagnella and Louise Vanneste.
In 2003, she began pursuing her choreographic work. From her autobiographical solo 25.06.76 to the group piece WEG (2019) she created about twenty pieces, including DAVID (2011), HÉRÉTIQUES (2014), NATIVOS (2016), AUTOCTONOS (2017). The protean body of work thus composed makes contradictions its own, helping to shed light on the complexity of the self. An unclassifiable and unpredictable choreographer, she navigates between several universes and aesthetics, constantly attentive to exploring different parts of herself and probing what links us to others.
She is regularly invited to collaborate with national companies and has created pieces for the KNCDC – Korean National Contemporary Dance Company (2016), the Ballet national de Marseille (2017), and Carte Blanche – Norwegian National Contemporary Dance Company (2019). Alongside her creations, Ayelen creates non-hierarchical laboratories to meet, share and exchange, which allow for testing new ways of working and communicating within a collective. The company also organises exchanges with the public, generally around its creations but also in the form of workshops with non-professionals. The company also emphasises transversal and transdisciplinary encounters, such as that with the composer and pianist Lea Petra or the physicist Pierre Dauby. The company received the SACD prize all of its work in 2016 and the Prix de la Critique for NATIVOS in 2017. The same year, Ayelen became a Fellow of the Pina Bausch Foundation which awarded her a scholarship. From 2017 to 2020, the company is artist in residence with Charleroi danse (Belgium). Ayelen was also a laureate of Pépinières européennes pour jeunes artistes (XXL programme) in 2006.
Her work has travelled throughout Europe, North and Latin America, Asia and North Africa, and has been shown at Théâtre de la Ville (Paris), Montpellier Danse, Actoral (Marseille), 100 dessus dessous festival (Paris), Palais de Tokyo (Paris), Kunstenfestivaldesarts (Brussels), Tanz im August (Berlin), Centquatre-Paris and the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. The company is currently supported by Théâtre de Liège (2018-2022) and by Théâtre National Wallonie-Bruxelles from 2022 on.
CREDITS:
A PROJECT BY: AYELEN PAROLIN
CREATED AND PERFORMED BY: BAPTISTE CAZAUX, PIET DEFRANCQ, DAAN JAARTSVELD
CHOREOGRAPHIC ASSISTANT: JULIE BOUGARD
LIGHT DESIGN: LAURENCE HALLOY
SCENOGRAPHY AND COSTUMES: MARIE SZERSNOVICZ
DRAMATURGY: OLIVIER HESPEL
OUTSIDE EYE: ALESSANDRO BERNARDESCHI
VISUALS: CÉCILE BARRAUD DE LAGERIE
COSTUMES: ATELIER DU THÉÂTRE DE LIÈGE
THANKS TO: OREN BONEH, JEANNE COLIN
Production: RUDA asbl
Production : Claire Geyer & Pauline Van Nuffel
— Coproduction Charleroi danse, Le Centquatre-Paris, Théâtre de Liège, CCN de Tours, MA Scène nationale – Pays de Montbéliard, Les Brigittines, DC&J Création
— Studios provided by CCN de Tours, Charleroi danse, Les Brigittines, Le Gymnase CDCN, Le Centquatre-Paris, MA scène nationale – Pays de Montbéliard
— With the support of Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles, Tax Shelter of the Federal Government of Belgium and Inver Tax Shelter
Ayelen Parolin is associated artist at Théâtre National Wallonie Bruxelles, from 2022 to 2026
