• Français
  • English

Body Time

“... Body Time, inspired by the novel The Body Artist by the American author Don DeLillo, is no exception to the vein from which the choreographer derives his style: A psychological thriller knit into the rigid routine of everyday life. In the brief moment during breakfast or in the limited space between the stairs going up to the bedroom or down to the cellar, anything is possible in the Hitchcock-like or David Lynch-like world... Without actually comparing it with Don DeLillo's work whose central character's turmoil is well portrayed, Body Time brings alive this mental theatre involving nightmares which take over the brain and blow up its monsters until folly. Spaces becomes quite blurred and freezes into a still life; time is arrested, trapped in a little empty space in the woman's lost brain.
In this disturbing vagueness, where normalcy slowly slips away, the explosive performance of Sandrine Maisonneuve, working with Toméo Vergès for the first time, is breathtaking. Guided by Toméo Vergès and Alvaro Morell, two exceptionally gifted directors, she firmly holds ground in this complex and stark score without any safety net other than her trust in the Toméo Vergès' talent. And she is right.”

Rosita Boisseau, Le Monde, April 25, 2006

 

“For Body Time, Toméo Vergès found an unparalleled artiste. Sandrine Maisonneuve interprets with incredible energy the grief caused by emptiness, the pains experienced by the body which cannot find solace and frustration.
She is present and absent at the same time. She has phenomenal muscular tonicity and haggard-looking movements carried out as if solely by will-power – singular paradox that dance alone can portray - Sandrine Maisonneuve carries out her daily activities whilst giving the impression that it is a ceremony by which her entire life hangs. Right from the breakfast table, where she replays over and over again the recordings of her day-to-day married life, up to the spasmodic efforts made to put up a white tiled surface – it is justified to mention the uncanny handling by Jean-Pierre Reynaud who covers the place up with tiles, so that it reminds of a nonspace. The woman engages her body as if to extend this gift of love which goes unrequited.
The theme of emptiness, of desire and tensing of the body due to unquenched desire, seems to be an important preoccupation in the choreographer's compositions. It was already the case in Asphyxie (1998), a duo, which portrayed the solitude and sexual frustrations of the writer. In that case, two men were needed. In case of Body Time, one woman was sufficient to make up an incredibly energetic production.”

Philippe Verrièle, www.webthea.com, May 24, 2006

 

“How was Toméo Vergès going to manage to translate onto the stage, the visual world and the savagely sophisticated writings of the American writer Don DeLillo? A million-dollar question, brilliantly answered. Body Time (…) has the ferocity of a slow uppercut. This Spanish born artist squeezes out a powerful and disquieting juice out of the situation proposed by Don DeLillo. It is no easy job to make perceptible the mental trauma of a woman who has just lost her husband and the chances of her tipping into folly. Toméo Vergès succeeds magnificently.”

Rosita Boisseau, Telerama sortir, April 19, 2006

 

“…On the vast stage of this theatre, a woman - gloomy, bony – tries to continue to live after her husband's demise. Lead by absolute denial to accept this sudden event, she sinks into despair and destructive madness. Sandrine Maisonneuve has achieved a true feat: Her dance is painful, rebellious, beastly …”

M.S. Le Journal de Saône et Loire, February 11, 2006

 

“Somewhere between dance, theatre and visual art, Toméo Vergès brings us Body Time, a wonderful staging. A disconcerting dream into which one should accept to enter wide-awake. The woman's dance is simply distortion, contortion, rage, repetition and march. The man's dance is flighty. The slow pace unites them into a remarkable duo. Body Time created a space where images come to us from the Obscure. Scenes unreel in front of us without any apparent logic or, may be they follow a different logic, a mysterious one, which could be that of a dream. Toméo Vergès likes to qualify his work as something between theatre and dance. This director could also talk about visual art. The light, video and sound effects, that he used with such assurance and in such an elaborate fashion, have contributed to the fluidity and visual beauty of the work.”

Muriel Mingau, Le Populaire du Centre, January 22, 2006

 

credits