Skid

A creation for 17 dancers performed on a 34 degrees platform. In Skid, human beings relationship to the law of gravity, to the poetry of resistance and abandonment from gravity itself, sets the dancers in motion.

Our very existence itself is about simultaneous dualities, between a desire to rise and a fear of falling. We fall asleep, we fall in love, contractions pull us out of the maternal cocoon to confront the hard laws of a terrestrial invisible force.

In Skid, human beings relationship to the law of gravity, to the poetry of resistance and abandonment from gravity itself, sets the dancers in motion. Flowing between verticality and horizontality, Skid is performed on 34 degree angled platform which dives directly in to the orchestra pit. The set is itself inspired by the measurement of earth’s gravitatonal acceleration measurement of 9.8 meters per second. With only 2 entrances to the angled space: above and below, the dancers are drawing physical story lines between appearance and disappearance.

Every movement of this choreographic exploration is created from the limits and new possibilities the slope offers. At times epic, dangerous, humorous or moving, Skid creates a new landscape of physical possibilities , creating a chain reaction of physical and emotional events. The human body becomes the crossroads between will, resistance, collapse and resilience – where the physical relationship to others is often times the only comfort against the call of the void.

The slope in Skid was been created by New York artist Jim Hodges and Carlos Marques da Cruz, while the playful and multi-functional costumes have been created by fashion designer Jean-Paul Lespagnard. Austrian composer Christian Fennesz provides the emotional electro-acoustic music, and lights by Joakim Brink further blurs the audience’s perception of verticality by multiplying the number of the dancers with stark elongated shadows.

Skid premiered in November 2017 at Gothenburg’s opera house.

The piece was named “Work of the Year” by the critical collective “Danse avec la Plume” 2019.

Press

Absolutely wonderful to watch… Skid succeeds in reinventing the form of a dance’s main material : gravity

Dagens Nyheter

A vertiginous sliding exercise on a 10 square meter slide inclined at 34 degrees, Skid is a magnetic gem. Alone or hanging in clusters, thrown backwards overhead, struggling to stand up to attack the slope like a Sisyphus of today, the fourteen dancers of this human group reinvent gravity. The motives of resistance, letting go, mutual aid, surround these dangerous and soaring games. To the haunting music of Christian Fennesz and Marihiko Hara, Skid, a superb metaphor of the human condition, envelops us in sweetness bubble of an inexorable fall. This paradox indicates the intensity of this performance inspired by the Japanese ritual of Onbashira, which takes place every six years near Nagano (Japan), throwing men clinging to tree trunks down very steep tracks. The Göteborgs Operans Danskompani troupe is simply fascinating in this choreographic feat.

Rosita Boisseau, Telerama

Skid is a major piece where Damien Jalet has constructed as a metaphor for humanity, from birth to death but backwards. He invents a dance that speaks of metaphysics with constant sensuality, compacting all our emotions.

Jean Frederic Saumont -Danse avec la Plume

A work of art that will make your chin drop in front of an unprecedented dance

Alba

Dancers bring a new perspective on their art. Breathtaking

Gotenborg Post

The ending where a naked and vulnerable life forces itself out, and up, grabs me so much that I am almost crying

Swedish National Radio

Videos

Credits

• Choreography: Damien Jalet
• Set: Jim Hodges with Carlos Marques da Cruz
• Music: Fennesz (with loops from Mahler), additional music by Marihiko Hara
• Costumes: Jean Paul Lespagnard
• Lights: Joakim Brick
• Choreographic advisor and guest dancer: Aimilios Arapoglou
• Performed and produced by Gothenburg Dance Company
• Artistic director: Katrin Hall
• Photography : Mats Bäcker, Mélanie Challe