premiere:
2nd & 3rd of April 2024
at l'Espace Pasolini - Valenciennes
in Le Grand Bain Festival
Associate production: Le Gymnase CDCN
Statement of intent
by Simon Le Borgne and Ulysse Zangs
Latin expression, literally meaning « in accordance with one’s wishes or until satiety », Ad Libitum is a piece about the desire – renewed or drying up – to create, to embody, to perform, to step outside oneself, to expand. The idea of moulting and the term «décontenancement» – meaning both «being taken aback» and «put out of one’s own container» – are the leading threads running through this creation, expressing one’s need to change one’s skin, to empty oneself of all substance, as well as the need to embody oneself, to fill one’s own container.
Questioning the relationship that we keep with our practice and influences, we build a choreographic and musical dialogue, between synchronicity and counterpoint. By focusing our attention on the energy that circulates between us, on what is specific to every human being: breathing, the rhythm of heartbeats, we summon the empathy needed to experience the other in all his or her humanity. We want to make ourselves malleable and vulnerable to a variety of forms and contents, in order to create a performance with a cyclical character: decomposition giving way to blossoming, the fall of a body allowing a new spurt of life.
Choreography Simon Le Borgne
Musical composition Ulysse Zangs
Performance Simon Le Borgne, Ulysse Zangs
Associate production: Le Gymnase CDCN Roubaix – Hauts-de‑France
Coproduction: Centre chorégraphique national de Rillieux-la-Pape – direction Yuval Pick dans le cadre du dispositif Accueil-Studio, La Briqueterie CDCN Val‑de‑Marne, L’Espace Pasolini – Valenciennes, Compagnie SLB
Patronage: Les Partageurs
Support: Festival De l’impertinence – Sète
[search for partners in progress]
The show will be premiered on 2 and 3 April 2024 at Espace Pasolini – Valenciennes during Le Grand Bain festival
12 to 23 December 2022
creative residence – Gymnase CDCN Roubaix
6 to 16 March 2023
creative residence – Gymnase CDCN Roubaix
17 March 2023
MUE au Gymnase CDCN at Le Grand Bain festival
30 September to 8 October 2023
creative residence – Gymnase CDCN Roubaix
23 to 27 October 2023
creative residence – CND à Lyon
5 to 10 February 2024
creative residence – CCNR – Rilleux-la-Pape
26 February to 1st March 2024
creative residence – La Briqueterie CDCN Val de Marne
30 March to 1st April 2024
creative residence – Espace Pasolini – Valenciennes
2 and 3 April 2024
premiere at Espace Pasolini – Valenciennes during Le Grand Bain festival
Available on tour: from April 2024 onwards
artistic team
Simon Le Borgne is a dancer and choreographer based in Paris. He began his training at the Opéra National de Paris dance school in 2005 before joining the company itself in 2014 and becoming a soloist in November 2019. He has performed in pieces by Maguy Marin, Merce Cunningham, Jiri Kylian, Ohad Naharin and Hofesh Schechter and has taken part in Season’s Canon and Body and Soul by Crystal Pite, Play by Alexander Ekman, The Male Dancer by Ivan Perez, Faunes by Sharon Eyal and Cri de Coeur by Alan Lucien Oyen. In parallel, he has been developing his own creative projects since 2018. In collaboration with Marion Barbeau, he created La Fille du Fort, an in-situ piece developed for the Fort d’Aubervilliers. Since 2021, he has been working with Yohana Benattar and Hanga Toth on the project Nos Gestes, Nos Soins, and developing a documentary performance on gestures involved in caring for people with a chronic illness or disability. During the 22/23 season he has been receiving support from Le Gymnase CDCN for his project Mue.
Ulysse Zangs is an artist, composer, musician and dancer, developing an art form where sound and movement meet. He graduated from the dance school of the Opéra National de Paris and the Palucca Hochschule für Tanz before joining the Dresden Frankfurt Dance Company in 2015, remaining there for four seasons. He has danced in pieces by Jacopo Godani, William Forsythe and Rafael Bonachela. As a composer and musician, he creates compositions for dance and started exploring his musical approach associated with movement more than a decade ago, collaborating with various artists such as Ersan Mondtag, Alt.Take, Gustavo Gomes, Michael Ostenrath and Simon Le Borgne.
