Première at theatre Arsenic, Lausanne, February 23rd, 1994. Choreography for 10 dancers et 2 actors.
In the light of game and proliferation, the civilized man appears like a puppet, a moving toy. Between past and present, real and fake, the dancers may ask the question to know where the game starts and where it ends.
In the maze game, each player has a role and a route. Meetings between players are forbidden, and the penalty is death by drowning. To escape, they must miss a move, and get to safe ground. Very quickly the players learn all the tricks and the game loses its fascination. Further moves become impossible…
It is time for a great explosion, and the burgeoning of people and eras. It is time for the melting-pot, for the wild and strange. We burst out laughing. At the frivolity of playtime. At the solemnity of ritual. With the loss of all landmarks, we by pass fate. This confusion becomes organised, salvaged and defined by a set of rules. We are in the domain of rules, broken rules and unfinished games.
Games where winners wear the mask of the defeated and the losers celebrate like conquerors. And we move in such oblique ways, such is our ability to adapt, transform… So long live this hurly-burly of laws and rules, this confusion of games, endlessly repeated and endlessly incomplete! Let it all become one supreme chaos! And let the umpire reign over this great day, and over this great game!
We all talk about the same things, always. The only things that change are shapes, situations, people. But what then are we to speak of, if not about what we are? We are put into this world then we are taken out. What happens in that space “in-between”?
There is one game we play, the longest perhaps, and most pathetic in its convictions. It is the one where we see the truth only at the end. It is around this theme that “The Crab Nebula” dances, this adult and futile world that exists so far from the sobriety of childhood. From the ridicules there com a certain tenderness.
Philippe Saire
La Nébuleuse du Crabe porte assurément bien son nom. Le propos de Philippe Saire s’entoure d’un flou artistique auquel il est bien difficile de ne pas être sensible. Car, pour peu qu’on laisse vagabonder son imagination, on est emporté par cette tempête de gestes, de mouvements et d’éclats sonores. (…)
Dans ce spectacle beau comme un Pollock, Philippe Saire se dépasse. Il dirige d’une main de maître une douzaine de pur-sang impétueux, à la gestuelle tranchante. Le Quatuor Balanescu – enregistré ici; « live » à Londres le 25 mai prochain – leur prête ses sublimes accords. (…) Jocelyne Pache coud ses costumes de rêve. Et en peintre qu’il est aussi, Jean-Marie Bosshard manie adroitement le pinceau lumineux.
Jean-Pierre Pastori, 24 Heures, Lausanne, 25 février 1994
Solos du diable, pas de deux des comédiens ou grouillements de masse : Philippe Saire tire de ces éléments des ambiances fortes, curieuses, macabres, drôles par moments. Ce sont les acteurs aussi qui relancent le rythme en s’emparant de Shakerpeare avec insolence et brio: un duo surprenant que l’on aurait attendu plus tôt comme contrepoids verbal à cette gestuelle ludique.
Michèle Pralong, Journal de Genève et Gazette de Lausanne, 25 février 1994
