Memento Mori. Remember that you will die. This age-old Latin expression is the
starting point for Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui's third creation for Les Ballets de
Monte-Carlo. This sentence is not a threatening injunction or macabre desire to
remind us that death awaits us all. The choreographer rather invites us not to
allow ourselves to be numbed by the idea that if death is inevitable, there is
nothing to be said or done about it but to wait for it. On the contrary, death
deserves our regular and constantly developing attention. For it is certain
that we don’t think about death in the same way as a child, as an adult or as
an older person. For the choreographer, the saddest thing would be that
routinely, we end up forgetting about it... To think about death is to remember
that it is our silent companion from our first scream to our dying breath and
that in its constant presence, our life becomes the greatest of mysteries.
Socrates said no less by saying that philosophy was practice for dying. Sidi
Larbi Cherkaoui has always sought to infuse his choreography with this
spiritual dimension, which prompts us to reclaim our reality. That reality does
not change, it is the way we look at this reality, which changes and enables us
to be individuals in progress. To remember is to grow.
This philosophy is illustrated in the body language, which the choreographer
has developed. Seeking to create a developing, breathing movement, which is
constantly fluid, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui is primarily concerned to link
choreographic motifs together. The main thing is not so much the movement
itself, but the way it arises from the previous one and sets up the next one.
Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui’s style is "liquid", it is about circular sequences, about
alternating flourishes and retreats. More than the vocabulary, it is the
syntax, which matters. For the dancers, this constant fluidity prompts them
never to settle but to become part of an aesthetic flow where the body is
rarely still.