“Ice burns, and it is hard for the warm-skinned to distinguish one sensation, fire, from the other, frost,” wrote A.S. Byatt in Elementals: Stories of Fire and Ice. Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami characterizes ice in Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman as a capsule that preserves the past “cleanly and clearly,” but possesses no future. In the ephemeral performance “MIZU,” frozen water takes on the form of a woman in an enchanting and emotive meditation on memory, time, and impermanence.
“MIZU” is the brainchild of puppeteer and director Élise Vigneron’s Théâtre de L’entrouvert and Companie Furankaï, which encompasses the work of choreographer and circus artist Satchie Noro. The composition highlights the fragility of our existence, the necessity of water, and “the passage from form to formlessness, from individual to cosmos,” Vigneron says.
The human body is around 60 percent water; the earth is covered by more than 70 percent. In “MIZU,” the title of which is named for the Japanese word for water (水), the human-size puppet double can be interpreted simultaneously as a unique individual and the dancer’s twin, with whom she communes and watches gradually disappear. “The melting of the ice reveals the nature of the double,” Noro says in a poetic statement. “The reflection slips away before I can escape it / After the ice, there is another material / A framework to explore / Dancing to find oneself again.”
The setting for the performance combines Noro’s interest in unique architectural apparatuses and environments outside of the traditional theater and Vigneron’s explorations of puppetry and creating forms with ice. Puppeteer Sarah Lascar controls the figure from the side and sometimes joins the dance to create a trio as is immersed in water.
“Mizu” is slated for performances throughout the summer at festivals and venues throughout Europe. Learn more on the production’s website. You might also enjoy revisiting Néle Azevedo’s “Minimum Monument.”
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