Vacuum

For more than thirty years, choreographer Philippe Saire’s experimental approach to dance has given him a reputation as one of Switzerland’s most important representatives of contemporary dance theater – a status he confirmed with his most recent work, Vacuum, created in 2016 in collaboration with the Théâtre National de Chaillot from Paris and Geneva’s La Bâtie festival.

In Vacuum, the dancers’ bodies move among two neon tubes, appearing and disappearing among black holes and blinding light. Saire thus creates a highly artistic and poetic optical illusion while also playing with the viewer’s sense of perception. The dancers’ bodies produce a diverse range of fantastical images that refer to various chapters from the history of art – from the Renaissance to the invention of photography. Vacuum is the third part of the Dispositifs project, a series of performances in which Saire consciously and inventively combines dance with the visual arts. In the first part of this triptych, Black Out (2011), the dancers’ movements formed various shapes and outlines into the darkness covering the stage as the audience watched from above. In the second part, NEONS Never Ever, Oh! Noisy Shadows (2014), two dancers moved among lights and shadows. The final part of this trilogy, Vacuum, goes the farthest yet in this interplay between light and dark.

Choreographer Philippe Saire’s conscious interdisciplinary combination of dance and art is also reflected in his attempt to move dance out of its traditionally defined place – i.e., the stage. To this end, Saire regularly stages his works in galleries, outdoors (in gardens or other public spaces), and in many other unusual places.