Didon et Énée

In Blanca Li’s pared-down staging, bathed in Pascal Laajili’s lighting, ten dancers interpret the myth of Dido and Aeneas in a resolutely contemporary form. Emotions and body language take precedence over the narrative to create a soaring, poetic and dense work. The recorded music, performed by Les Arts Florissants, lends a dramatic and extraordinarily lively dimension to the piece, accompanying Blanca Li’s sinuous, supple and ethereal choreography.

Voices and dancing are constantly interwoven, and the dancers merge naturally and gracefully, sometimes acting as shadows of the voices, embodying the feelings of the characters, who thus possess several bodies, each expressing itself in its own way. The staging is full of fantasy and freedom, playing on the comic and tragic aspects of the libretto. The choreography is sinuous, supple, aerial and athletic, full of ideas, images, humor, cheekiness and color, reinforced by the power of the lighting and set design. Blanca Li has freed herself from any sense of realism in relation to the text, allowing herself the freedom to address the symbolism and power of emotions in a resolutely contemporary set of images.

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