On the one hand, the power of Critical Mass, a piece for two dancers by Russell Maliphant, on the other, Dance, a piece for seventeen performers whose title says it all, and which unwinds a constant flow of bodies’ dynamics, lightness and elevation.

Fusion and effusion
With Russell Maliphant, who created Critical Mass in 1998 – a work that entered the repertory of the Opéra de Lyon in 2002 – it is above all the power of bodies’ movements that speak. Two dancers enter into a joust which is as tender as it is harmonious, made up of scraps and losses of balance, acrobatics and fusion. It is an aesthetic which the choreographer derived from the martial arts, in which the density and intensity of the bodies lay down the law, in a sublime reflection about otherness.
Created in1979, Dance is the first great large-scale piece by Lucinda Childs, for which the choreographer chose to work once again with Philip Glass, after having collaborated with the composer on Einstein on the Beach. This modern-dance masterpiece is set in the minimalist current, but was conceived as a euphoric eruption, a virtuoso and hypnotic effusion of bodies. This effect is heightened by the film projected onto the back of the stage with movements superimposed over the dancers.