Duration: 75 Min. Choreography, Direction, Performance: Morgan Nardi (IT) Performance: Kepha Odhiambo Oiro (KE) Direction, Dramaturgy, Video: Alessandro De Vita (IT) Visual Art: Hinrich Gross (DE) Music: Neil Leonard (USA), Alessandro De Vita (IT) Sounddesign: Idrioema (PT) Lighting: Philipp Zander (DE) Management, PR: Alexandra Schmidt (DE) Organisation: Martin Brüggemann (DE) Co-produced by: tanzhaus nrw, Düsseldorf and Dance Forum Nairobi, Kenia Funded by: Ministerium für Familie, Kinder, Jugend, Kultur und Sport des Landes NRW; Kunststiftung NRW; Kulturamt der Landeshauptstadt Düsseldorf and NRW Kultursekretariat Wuppertal. Supported by: the Residencies of PACT Zollverein Essen and Körper - International Dance Contemporary Art Center – Naples and by the DE.MO./MOVIN’UP Project.
I want to leave you with a question. What was first: the choreographer or the movement?
„Look. Open your eyes and the cage in your breast. I have nothing true to say but I'II try to forget. I'II be forgetting for so long until 1 have no memory at all. We'll see ourselves like sounds of light, we’ll hang up to the wall this flesh and it get daylight. Call out the Sound of this silence that is holy and kills all certainty. lt will reach the end of your mouth, very very slowly. Nothing was as before since then. His voice, his voices, the evenings, just infinitesimal parts and smooth splittings. Jerks and processions, clown's confessions and relaxing massacres. Tell me farewell, tell me about hell. About you and me no more. Many pieces. So many pieces. Then again no more."
Referring to the famous thesis of Descartes “Dubito ergo sum – I doubt therefore I am” the choreographer Morgan Nardi starts an artistic research on the principle of doubt being the base of creativity. The initial point of the show, which he developed in collaboration with the Kenyan dancer Kefa Odhiambo Oiro, is the loss of certainty. He pursues his artistic research on philosophical issues, which in 2010 he began with his solo performance “a one m(org)an show” about the concept of authenticity and fake.
In “D.E.S. – Dubito Ergo Sum“ he constantly alternates the narrative levels and stages a game about uncertainty and irritation. In English-speaking lectures he negotiates topics like self-reflection as an artist or the understanding of one’s role as a performer or choreographer. Is there a clear borderline between faith and knowledge? Changing between the language ductus of medieval exercises and pseudo scientific lectures, Morgan Nardi stages scenes that seemingly dissolve the transitions of light and dark, shadow and projections, solo and duo.
Press
HE AND HIS SHADOW
How good you can die on stage, only to immediately after coming back to life again, even so that can only be another stage life. That’s what Morgan Nardi in his new show is indulging in and one might start pondering and reflecting the basis of his profession. The Düsseldorf based Italian dancer and choreographer Morgan Nardi, who already worked for VA Wölfls Neuer Tanz and Derek Jarman, now for the second time addresses such fundamental topics. In “A one M(org)an Show” he negotiates with a lot of irony involved, the issue of authenticity; “D.E.S. – Dubito Ergo Sum” even imposes the question of meaning on one’s role understanding and self-reflection. Not, I think therefore I am, but I doubt therefore I am, is what he is saying referring to Descartes, and has arranged this question of meaning on the bare space of the small stage of Tanzhaus, where he performed for three nights. Light and shadow are highly effective used, the Kenyan dancer Kepha Odhiambo Oiro initially remains at his side in the purest sense of the word.
Motionless he keeps an eye on Nardi performing a solo, which from nervous agitation slowly moves into sliding waves, motionless he is treated like a manikin, while Nardi lectures in a pseudo scientific manner on the foot.
Those small lectures give structure to the show, the humour of Nardi emerging, which English spoken is not making the comprehension any easier. In the background the portraits of the two men blur into one entity and also on stage both dressed in austere grey join together in a poetic duet. When Morgan Nardi dies the stage death, his head is hitting a tile, which bursts into lots of fragments, Oiro reviews the deceased in ritual phrases, a shade of his master, a Friday of his Robinson Crusoe; in case you want to be nasty. “What was first? The movement or the choreographer?” Nardi asks in English, bell-ringing looming in the background. And how act the separate parts of the tile in proportion to the previous whole? It is a whole bunch of philosophy Nardi burdens onto himself in “D.E.S.” and it is quite amazing how his show is not collapsing under the weight of this burden, even though sometimes it is critically swaying.
A lasting impression is left by the interaction of Nardi and Oiro, a shadow play of remarkable elegance.