NINGYO by Cie Nicole Seiler

Pro Helvetia presents NINGYO, a multimedia dance performance by Company Nicole Seiler of Switzerland in Bangalore at Ranga Shankara and in Mumbai at The Experimental Theatre, NCPA. [dated January 2011]

Pro Helvetia presents NINGYO, a multimedia dance performance by Company Nicole Seiler of Switzerland in Bangalore at Ranga Shankara and in Mumbai at The Experimental Theatre, NCPA.

Bangalore / Ranga Shankara
Saturday, 29 January 2011 at 7:30 pm and
Sunday, 30 January 2011 at 11:00 am

Mumbai / The Experimental Theatre, NCPA
Wednesday, 2 February 2011 at 7:30 pm and
Thursday, 3 February 2011 at 7:30 pm

Credits
Choreography, video Nicole Seiler
Dance performance Chiharu Mamiya
Live Music Letizia Renzini
Costume design Claude Rueger
Light design Stéphane Gattoni
Stage design, technique Julien Grob Dramatist Simona Travaglianti
Video assistant Vincent Deblue

Ningyo is no ordinary contemporary dance performance. It is a tribute to our complexity. Swiss choreographer and video-maker Nicole Seiler continues to question us right through the hour long piece. With Ningyo, a piece she created in 2008, Nicole Seiler talks of the necessity to be indecisive. Why must one feel the need to choose between life forms? Between the body and the mind? The question about ideal beauty is central in Nicole Seiler’s work. In Ningyo, she continues to look at the limits between attraction and repulsion, and beauty and monstrosity. The title of this piece is significant. Ningyo is a Japanese word composed of nin (man) and gyo (depending on the pronunciation fish or shape.) So Ningyo means mermaid or doll. Ningyo does not chronologically tell the story of these half-human, half-animal creatures. The structure of the piece is a performative process which questions the duality of this aquatic creature. “A mermaid embodies an ambivalent femininity. A mixture of seduction and danger. She slides through the nets of categories: a woman-child in between waves, femme fatale at the crest, sometimes prey but often a huntress. Mermaids escape nets; it’s their privilege.” - Nicole Seiler At the beginning of the piece, Ningyo plays with the audience’s perception. The stage is submerged in darkness. Slowly, a being appears. The form does not match that of the mermaid we know of. She is neither graceful nor seductive. Then she emerges out of her natural environment, the water body. At first, the stereotype of ideal beauty is forgotten and a rarer or less well-known aspect about mermaids is told. In certain legends they are described as ugly, repulsive monsters living in the unexplored, scary depths of the sea. The ambiguity of water, sometimes associated with destruction and sometimes with regeneration, also influences Ningyo’s direction. Thus the water’s duality evolves alongside the mermaid’s duality which gives of a powerful force of attraction and at times disgusts and terrifies.

With the help of video projections, Nicole Seiler creates atmospheres which explode the conventional space of a theatre stage. The character in this solo finds herself little by little closed in and projected outside. She repeatedly multiplies herself and is reflected by the water’s surface, which also serves as a tool for the video projections, a multiple mirror. In one scene the dancer plays with her shadow on the back wall, she dissolves it and then escapes from it. Later she is captive of an image projected on the ceiling, from which she flies away using a visual effect created by video. In Ningyo, the dance and the video have the same importance. Created together, these two expressive mediums underline the mermaids dual personality. Ambiguities and dualisms are revealed and eluded to. The stage direction continually integrates opposites like black and white, visible and invisible, singular and plural, animal and man, beauty and monstrosity and shows the blurred limits between attraction and repulsion. Nicole Seiler, the choreographer and video artist of Ningyo studied at the Dimitri School in Verscio Switzerland followed by the Vlaamse Dansacademie in Bruges, Belgium. She later completed her dance education at the School of Maurice Béjart in Lausanne, Switzerland. She was part of many dance and theatre companies including Cie Buissonnière (choreographer Philippe Lizon) in Lausanne, Teatro Malandro (directed by Omar Porras) in Geneva, Cie Philippe Saire and Alias Compagnie, Geneva (choreographer Guilherme Botelho). Nicole Seiler set up her own company in 2002. Her artistic approach combines dance and video and she creates dance and multimedia stage performances, choreographic installations and dance videos. In her work dance and video are equally important. Conceived together the two media dialogue constantly and this symbiosis generates new body shapes and movements. Productions by Company Nicole Seiler include Living-room Dancers, Ningyo, K Two, Je m’appelle…, Pixel Babes, 4 clips pour aufnahmen, Dolls / Dolls live, Lui, One in a Million, Madame K and Quoi? Ningyo comes to life with a brilliant solo performance by Chiharu Mamiya. Japanese by birth, Chiharu studied at the Rosella Hightower School in Cannes. She has worked with choreographers Nicole Caccivio in Berlin, Gilles Jobin in Geneva, Katarzyna Chmielewska in Gdansk, Poland and Estelle Héritier and Nicole Seiler in Lausanne, Switzerland. At dancer Chiharu Mamiya’s side is another presence on stage, a DJ. Mixing tables and many different cables contrast with the natural element of water. Letizia Renzini’s music underlines the atmospheres created by the dance and the video projections. For more information on Compagnie Nicole Seiler visit www.nicoleseiler.com