RAGA

Pho­to: Eti­enne Bertrand WEILL

Raga (1984)
Per­formed by Georges Mol­nar
Chore­og­ra­phy: Richard Trem­blay
Cos­tumes: François Bar­beau

In a cre­ation com­bin­ing the rhythm and col­or of Hin­dus­tani music with move­ment, Raga (1984) is a stage work imbued with poet­ry. In their inti­mate and pro­longed cre­ative process, the chore­o­g­ra­ph­er Richard Trem­blay and the per­former Georges Mol­nar put togeth­er an hour-long dance work giv­ing free rein to their encounter in a chore­og­ra­phy evok­ing ancient myths.

‘Raga shows three dis­tinct scenes. The hero car­ries a stone on his back and places it on the top of a moun­tain, which stone rolls down by itself. Sisy­phus (the myth­i­cal hero) repeats his ges­ture eter­nal­ly, with­out bit­ter­ness. Through his con­tin­u­al and use­less ges­ture, he suf­fers pun­ish­ment as much as he tri­umphs over it, since each time he does it again, a secret and new ener­gy ani­mates him and ele­vates him beyond the pos­si­ble… In the third part of the work, the body intrudes, with atten­tive and remark­able flex­i­bil­i­ty, into the cen­ter of sev­en cubes. Points of ten­sion, sta­ble sup­ports, oblique fig­ures, cir­cu­lar and rotat­ing move­ments, slips, falls, get­ting up, are all phys­i­cal efforts to ele­vate the soul of the pro­tag­o­nist beyond his earth­ly mis­ery’. (Trans­la­tion)

(Vie des Arts, Vol. XXIX, no 115, 1984.)