See the performance by Denis Sanglard here! https://vimeo.com/355963504
It was on the initiative of René Baptist Huysmans, after he saw one of Denis Sanglard's solos in which the performance included a long walk, that Bipédie 2.0 was born. A reflection on the act of walking. The first image that occurred to Denis after René's proposal was L'Homme qui marche I, a sculpture by Giacometti. It is around this singular figure, existentialist in the Sartrean sense, that the dance emerged slowly, nourished by the music of René through which they exchanged at length on the meaning of the act of walking in general.
For the music of Bipédie René chose as basic material sounds that have a dual structure: heartbeats, sea waves, breathing, steps, etc. The composition explores the various meanings of these dual sounds. For example, there are sounds that stand, like pylons, proud and sure of themselves, witnesses of the evolution of the human being from a quadruped to the undisputed master of the world, but above all that of iron and technique. On the other hand, there are the sounds that signal the fragility of the human being such as breathing and heartbeats. And then there are the waves of the sea, a sublime phenomenon of a nature completely indifferent to the well-being of man, but also the waves that are enjoyed at the beach, and finally there is the tsunami that devours everything it meets on its way.
What is expressed in Bipédie is the whole metaphor of the destiny of man in his fundamental freedom that condemns him, that this act of walking, at the same time determined and fragile, shows. Immobile. We don't know where he comes from, we don't know where he's going, but he goes through time and space. It is a life crossed by a forced march. The feet anchored to the ground of which he seems to emerge and draw his energy but with an impulse that leads him to the future, which he seems to be fixated upon with force. What does it mean to stand up? What does it stand for? What does walking mean? What does walking imply, this permanent imbalance? And what are the consequences for the individual? "Every man who walks can go astray" (Goethe).
Heart beat sample by RSilveira_88 (freesound.org)
