[Rhythm] is form whenever it is embodied in what is moving, movable, fluid, […]. It is the improvised, transient, modifiable form. – Emile Benveniste 1. In that sense human life can be apprehended as a ceaselessly mutating form, “a walking path” 2, a succession of instants that serve as the pulsation of a rhythm on a larger scale, the rhythm of a lifetime. From one instant to the next, that rhythmicity is at once what is closest to us and yet remains the most unknown: every one of our gestures –gait, speech, reflexes– delineates rhythmic patterns composed of a sequence of instants. Gradually, what we experience blends in step by step with what we have experienced earlier, already echoing, midway between memory and expectation, what we will experience at a later stage.

The prospective odds, so plentiful at birth, narrow down progressively until they define the unique existence of a specific being, a rhythm that bespeaks one unique means of experiencing time.
The display of alternatively slow or fast flows, of durations, starts, pauses, stresses, intensities, surges, pitches, tempi, permeates the present of a sensible experience marked by every past event and yet simultaneously anticipating the sound of every event in time to come.
As a result the manifold rhythms, the manifold fluencies emerge, those instants that constitute the many parts of the compass of a particular human life among other equally particular human lives; they all coexist within the whole compass of human generations and unite into pure musicality.

Maguy Marin
1. Emile Benveniste, « La notion de rythme dans son expression linguistique », in Problèmes de linguistique générale, tome 1,
Gallimard, 1966.
2. Paul Klee, La Pensée créatrice, Dessain et Tolra, 1973.

Credits

Choreography and design Maguy Marin music design Charlie Aubry with Ulises Alvarez, Kaïs Chouibi/Marcelo Sepulveda, Laura Frigato, Daphné Koutsafti, Cathy Polo, Ennio Sammarco
Technical direction and lighting design Alexandre Béneteaud
Accessory design Louise Gros and Laura Pignon
Costume design Nelly Geyres with Raphaël Lo Bello
Sound design Antoine Garry / Loïc Goubet stage manager Albin Chavignon
Set design la compagnie Maguy Marin special thanks to Louise Mariotte

Coproduction théâtre Garonne, scène européenne, Toulouse. Théâtre de la ville / Festival d’automne à Paris. Monaco Dance Forum – Les ballets de Monte-Carlo. Opéra de Lille. La Filature, Scène nationale de Mulhouse. théâtre Garonne de Toulouse. Ballet du Nord – Centre Chorégraphique National de Roubaix Nord de Calais. Charleroi Danses – Le Centre chorégraphique de la Fédération Wallonie – Bruxelles. MC2: maison de la culture de Grenoble. Théâtre de Nîmes – scène conventionnée pour la danse contemporaine. Compagnie Maguy Marin.
Other financial support for the creation : L’Adami. With the support of de la Biennale de la danse de Lyon et du Théâtre National Populaire.
La Compagnie Maguy Marin is subsidised by le Ministère de Culture et de la Communication, la Ville de Lyon, la Région Rhône-Alpes et reçoit l’aide de l’Institut français pour ses projets à l’étranger.