“Midnight Souls”, Caroline Carlson makes the stars dance in the Cour d’Honneur of the Palais des Papes

“For you Bob”

Caroline sits at the center of the court. True to form, in a colorful tunic and with her hair up. She rises and takes the floor to dedicate the performance to Bob Wilson, whose death announcement set the cultural world ablaze earlier in the day. She raises her hand to the sky, her voice overcome with emotion. Like him, she is American; like him, she belongs to that generation of American post-modern dance that wrote and composed to the rhythm of Philip Glass.

This show, presented as part of the exhibition COSMOS ou les Fantômes de l’Amour, which spans ten venues in the city, including the Palais, took on a very special power due to the context, since the music for the piece is by René Aubry and… Philip Glass. As a very present ghost, Bob Wilson seemed to sit right next to Carlson, as he did in 1976.

On the living side, we have to wait and wait, because there’s a wall to look at. This wall, always this wall, which changes its appearance according to the spotlights that shine on it or envelop it. On the occasion of Satin Shoethat Éric Ruf had turned the Courtyard and this wall into a set unlike any other in the festival’s history. For Le Soulier, Ruf had used the site at 360 degrees. Here, Carlson and Othoniel prove us wrong. Here again, we’ve never seen anything like it. All the windows in the mythical wall are filled with blue glass bricks. This gives the façade a phantasmagorical allure.

What to do with the living?

But what about the living? At the bottom of the façade, there are alcoves. Othoniel has sublimated them with a ramp that follows their shape, again in brick. It is on this ramp that Hugo Marchand slowly arrives: he crosses it before stepping into the center of the immense stage. On stage are three trees, again in brick. From his early years, Othoniel places a cluster of metal balls in the center, a little way back. There’s also a bench and two stools. We hear the touch of Víkingur Ólafsson, at the piano, playing Opening, an excerpt from Glassworks by Philip Glass. The image is disquieting. The run slows down, then speeds up. The body opens up, the arms pull back. The back multiplies, the hips open, and with a wave of the hand that tells us where to look, he becomes a bird taking flight.

He’s not alone for long. He is first accompanied by two elderly souls (Sara Orselli and Juha Marsalo), who float through the space, before his sweetheart arrives. Caroline Osmont advances in a flowing, very Carlsonian dress. She seems to be his incarnation. Like her, she offers grand pliés en seconde, like an undulating offering. She emphasizes her face with her fingertips, tracing a memory of shapes.

Tension mounts: will the meeting take place? It has to for the sake of the dance, to lift the duo even higher in their twirling one-shoulder lifts. It’s not all plain sailing between these two. Tension builds in a pas de deux. He and she test each other. The dance becomes an incantation, almost a ceremony. The trust is there, in these two mirrored bodies, their heads and hands in dialogue. They seem to be directed by invisible forces, as if passing through and connected to each other. An almost-caress emerges, magnificent, suspended.

Dream writing

Then comes the real new gesture of Midnight Souls. It’s a slow-motion waltz, with arms at super-geometric angles. When Carlson reinserts it a second time into her choreography, the dancer finishes alone, without her partner. Juha Marsalo plays the role of oracle in this daydream: he decides for him whether she will be his chosen one or not. Then, the strokes so iconic to Carlson’s gesture resume. The backs widen a little more, the slits become animalistic.

When the dream comes to an end, we’re left breathless by the beauty of the writing, carried by these performers of extraordinary technique. To see a star dance is always an event; to see Hugo Marchand come and go tirelessly on a stage almost as large as that of Garnier. A pure moment of classical contemporary dance, deeply rooted in the 20th century. Bob would have loved it.