Les yeux dans les yeux in French
Conception and choreography: Geisha Fontaine and Pierre Cottreau
Film: Pierre Cottreau
Performers: Geisha Fontaine, Sylvain Dufour
Lights: Sandie Charron
Make up: Sylvain Dufour
Translation Japanese/French: Kazumi Fuchigami
Passionate about philosophy, an old dancer goes to Japan to research the Treaty of the Iris or Treaty of the Rainbow, a work not found in Europe written by Spinoza. The latter is an ideal philosopher for dancers, he develops a “practical philosophy” which befits dance. From Nagasaki to Tokyo, after many adventures, the dancer discovers the treaty and draws inspiration from it to experiment with a series of demonstrations on the gaze recommended by Spinoza. But Japan impresses him in more ways than one. Since she does not speak Japanese and most Japanese only speak their language, she devotes herself to incessant observation of the country, its shapes and details. Gradually, she begins to do what she sees, unknowingly illustrating the theory of mirror neurons. A discovery in neuroscience shows that the same neurons are activated in the one who performs an action and in the one who watches this action take place. The dancer is inspired by what she sees to finally do something else, and relies on Spinoza’s treatise to physically draw her gaze out of its orbit. Eyes to eyes is the spectacle of this adventure.
Coproduction : Centre national de la danse, Ballet de l’Opéra national du Rhin – Centre Chorégraphique National de Mulhouse, La Briqueterie – CDC du Val-de-Marne, Institut français de Tokyo-Japon, Ville de Champigny-sur-Marne.
With the support of : DRAC Ile-de-France – Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication, Région Ile-de-France, Conseil général du Val-de-Marne, La Chartreuse de Villeneuve Lez Avignon – Centre national des écritures du spectacle, Festival internacional de danza independiente CoCoA 2012 (Buenos Aires, Argentina), La Vitrina (Santiago, Chile), Institut français, RAVIV – Réseau des Arts Vivants.