Although a priori it may seem like a show along the lines of Cirque du Soleil, the spirit of the French choreographer Rachid Ouramdane and that of the tightrope walker Nathan Paulin (the one who crossed Passeig de Gràcia last summer on a cable) have nothing to do with the Search for the show. On the contrary. They don't care that the piece, as choreography, falls into tedium at any given moment. Its atmosphere and the quality of its movements in the constant lifting, playing trapeze artists, building three-piece tower pillars and climbing the free climbing wall is diametrically far from what is understood by show.
Even more so when that same white wall they climb serves as a screen in the Mercat de les Flors to show on video the same performers in the open air, breaking the laws of physics through mountains of the planet, while their voice-over explains what moves them to indulge in that practice; their fears and certainties...
"I saw among the clouds the face of my grandmother who had recently died," explains Paulin about one of his highlights on the tightrope, crossing a huge valley in China. "It is something unusual that has not been repeated, it was just that one time, in China." The Mercat audience - which has reached capacity for the three performances, including this Saturday afternoon - faces a spectacle somewhere between documentary and circus dance. Because Corps estrêmes stars a dozen climbing professionals, tightrope walkers and lovers of letting themselves fall into the void that make up, with their dizzying movements, an organic, tender visual landscape, without artifice.
A fan of hip-hop, Ouramdane (Nimes, 1971) joined the National Center for Contemporary Dance in Angers in the nineties as a performer and choreographer. His creations usually come from intimate experiences. On other occasions he has addressed the figures of refugees, victims of natural disasters or torture... But on this occasion the now director of the Compagnie de Chaillot (project on diversity and hospitality) speaks of that longing of flying that invades the human being, that desire to surrender to the world from the void left by two mountains, or from the one left by a vertical wall in a mountain range, with projections that are not always reliable...
"The extreme bodies of Corps extrêmes are an exercise in intelligence. A human choice. An alliance of radically extreme individuals in the service of an even more extreme idea of what they can build together," writes critic Joaquim Nogero. Corps extrêmes constitutes one of the high ligths of the Dansa Metropolitana festival in which up to 12 municipalities in the Barcelona area participate during this month of March.
