Angelin Preljocaj takes a great interest in philosophy, and he is showing it once again with this creation. Haunted by the problematics related to the transcendence of the body, the choreographer built this creation on audio recordings of lectures given by Gilles Deleuze at the University of Paris VIII in the 1980s. In these lectures, Deleuze provides a humorous and pertinent analysis of Spinoza’s reflexions on the question of the body and the movement in Ethics, one of his most famous work.
In this project, Deleuze’s voice and statements become intertwined with Jimi Hendrix’s powerful, sensual and revolutionary music, thus resonating with Spinoza’s skolia.
Angelin Preljocaj explores a new territory of choreographic research where the body, as a universal object we all know, becomes a medium that raises the questions of our own world.
Voices are a frequent part of the choreographer’s creations, though in very different registers: in 1995, L’Anoure presented a live reading of Pascal Quignard’s libretto. In 2009, Angelin Preljocaj delivered a solo performance of Jean Genet’s essay Le Funambule (The Tightrope Walker). In 2012, French actor Laurent Cazanave voiced Laurent Mauvignier’s words in Ce que j’appelle oubli. And in 2019, Preljocaj recreated Winterreise by Franz Schubert, a piece for piano and voice, with dancers sharing the stage with baritone singer Thomas Tatzl.
Voice and philosophy are also essential in Empty moves, a three-part creation Preljocaj began in 2004, in which he uses an incredible soundtrack: a baffling performance by John Cage in Milan, inspired by philosopher Henry David Thoreau’s essay Civil Disobedience, in which Cage simply utters incomprehensible phonemes.
With this creation, Angelin Preljocaj finds another way of navigating between philosophy and pop culture while bringing us back to the legendary sound of the Woodstock era.
A piece of “Pop Philosophy” as imagined by Deleuze?