La Nouvelle Gazette

Anne Soumoy

« Negatovas »

La Nouvelle Gazette

Biennale de la Danse

D’un côté l’absurdité de l’autre la poésie

This Wednesday between the Palais des Beaus Arts de Charleroi and the Ecuries, two young dancers and choreographers shared with us their imaginary universe.

In the new dance space Les Ecuries of Charleroi, and thankfully for us, “Negatovas” was presented in the second part of the program at the Palais des Beaux Arts, and it was a great performance. Karine Ponties has overcome her own experience by working for other choreographers before daring her own creation process. We have seen her in shows of Charleroi-Danses, Michele Noiret’s works and with the Mosoux/Bonte Company too. This last project of hers is created around four male characters: two dancers a musician and an actor that have developed and proposed her own ideas. At the stage this four characters wander about in the darkness, in the emptiness facing each other. Throughout the movement Karine establishes the question of: how can anyone develop kindness, tenderness inside such an environment?

With out forgetting what that could bring whether is comic or tragic the quarter gets to the quest perfectly. They make us laugh with that special gesture close to the sign language of the deaf from another planet. The hand on the chick of another, head under someone’s kilt, those men make us tender by their indifference, and their detachment, although seemingly enchanted. Always following her own feelings, Karine stages a combination of bodies with a great sense of minimalism, calculated and meticulous. Searching inside a universe more than in a choreographic language. This talented woman makes us dive in the lighting darkness of her imaginary, where the burlesque and the estrange meet. She develops an intriguing dance, poetical to a point where we can no longer explain but from which we are completely seduced.

(translated by Jordi Granados)