Rehearsal photos: Michael Maurissens, Jo Hempel and stage photos: Rainald Endrass

About CHORA

CHORA is a space of possibilities and potentiality. A space in which things can take place and live in constant breathing, expanding, and contracting – connecting the outer world with our inner world. A space shared with the audience that suggests our interconnected-ness to the world around us through all means of perception. 

CocoonDance, which is known for their powerful works that deconstruct the body, focuses in "Chora" as never before on space and its perception. It is about understanding choreography as a cultural technique capable of interconnecting bodies as well as things, driving transformative change and opening groundbreaking resonant spaces. In "Chora", the theatre space is transformed into a topography that holds places, paths and experiences. In its original Greek meaning, "chora" means "to give space to things that have their own place"; which is a pretty good description of what theatre should do.

CHORA created by CocoonDance Company with its co-authors is inspired by the metaphor of “diffraction” as a mode of thinking and stands for the search for new creative processes. The project focuses on co-authorship and its multiple possibilities. It is a way of rewriting, transforming and fusing movement and a polyphonic aesthetic. It features seven dancers in an evolving and shared sound/space installation where the bodies of the audience and performers coexist, communicate and network in a concept that creates an extraordinary scenic space.

PRESS CLIPPINGS

The choreographer and artist in residence at the Théâtre du Crochetan invites the audience on stage to get as close as possible to the movement. She invites us to dive into the heart of her work and at the same time to question our relationship with the other, the stranger, so far away and yet so close. .... Little by little, the ballet becomes the world. The performance changes its content and becomes hyperactive and fascinating as soon as we allow ourselves to become part of the tableau, to enter the dance. The bodies of one and the other communicate in an almost physical, if distant, trance. A tensed muscle, the curve of a breast, a scent, a fold of fabric, all are amplified by the zoom of our imagination. Time stands still... After captivating us with Vis Motrix and seducing us with Hybridity, the Bonn-based choreographer continues her work on the different dimensions that make up a performance: she breaks the fourth wall and multiplies gestures to force the spectator to leave the comfort of darkness and his place as a witness to act and interact. Although some members of the audience on opening night found it difficult to let go and fully immerse themselves in the performance, the seeds of this community of souls and bodies are just waiting to germinate. ... In collaboration with her dancers - Martina De Dominicis, Margaux Dorsaz, Álvaro Esteban, Clémentine Herveux, Marin Lemic, Bojana Mitrovic, Evandro Pedron - Rafaële Giovanola has created a profound piece that builds slowly but literally enchants in the end! (Olivier Frégaville-Gratian d’Amore, loeildolivier.fr, 06.10.2023)

The dance company CocoonDance presented the German premiere of their new choreography "Chora" at the Ringlokschuppen in Mülheim. The performers merge with the audience. A real experience, the likes of which are rarely seen. The company is directed by the Swiss choreographer Rafaële Giovanola. With this choreography, she and the seven dancers have made dance a completely new experience for both sides. Stage and space are not separated from each other. The space is the stage on which both sides can move freely. The principle is explained to the audience during the introductory workshop. They should feel the space as a cosmos in which they meet. The guests are an important part of the evening. They determine their own position, can move freely,

sit on the floor or even freely determine the distance to the dancers. Sometimes they also become part of a gathering of dancers, so that they are very close to them and right in the middle of it. ... Everything fits together perfectly. The visitors creatively shape the space, the dancers adapt to it and fill it. Light and sound round off the evening perfectly. We live in a society with many problems that is changing a lot, including culture. Creative ideas are needed. This evening is such a successful example of how people can come together again in a social way. (Holger Jehle, abenteuer-ruhrpott.info, 20.10.2023)

The audience becomes part of the whole – The Bonn-based ensemble Cocoondance presents its impressive new creation "Chora" at the Theater im Ballsaal. [Headline]  What happens on this premiere evening in the ballroom is an event of great power, an adventure for everyone present. The audience experiences itself in a completely different way in the theatrical context, torn out of its role as spectator without being forced into an embarrassing participatory theater. The choreography is extremely clever in its strategy to make the interaction between performers and audience artistically fruitful, but nothing here seems too cerebral.

On the contrary: "Chora is an extremely sensual work. The dancers give everything. Martina De Dominicis, Margaux Dorsaz, Álvaro Esteban, Clémentine Herveux, Marin Lemic, Bojaana Mitrovic and Evandro Pedroni show an enormous physical presence for 60 minutes, at all speeds. When they run through the space, as well as in the moments when they crawl across the floor like some kind of amphibian. Or when they roll through the space like a coherent cluster of cells, constantly changing position. Towards the end of the hour-long performance, the dancers occupy black mobile platforms, the only props that can also serve as seats for the audience. A moment of silence before the dancers once again enter a kind of slow ecstasy. Big applause! (Bernhard Hartmann, Bonner General-Anzeiger, 04.11.2023)

A radiant immersion in the body, freed from all constraints. A masterpiece. ... Rafaële Giovanola is tireless. CHORA is exactly in this spirit. ... The piece takes place in an almost empty space, the only stage set is a small platform in the middle. The dancers conquer the space while the audience circles around them and gets as close to them as possible. ... CHORA is a secular collective community, a manifesto for our time, modern and radical. (Amélie Blaustein-Niddam, cult.news/, Retrieved: 05.11.2023)

The concept of dissolving the theatrical space is not entirely new. Cocoon has repeatedly played with this instrument itself, staging an incredibly dramatic encounter between the audience and the ensemble with "Ghost Trio" in 2018. In the independent scene, dance often takes on an installative character. Walking around the performers is already an established habit. But the staging is often so static that you can only observe the action from one position, and it would be pointless to walk across the stage. It's different here. In the ballroom, the protagonists move through the space, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. They do this nimbly, and yet, as a spectator, you have to change your position in the room in order to observe. ... While the ensemble forms a cluster of people and the choreography is more like a set of instructions for the dancers than a score in which every step is precisely placed, light and music become the focus of attention. Jan Wiesbrock, David Glassey and Boris Kahnert set the mood with lighting accents that they handle with virtuosity. While the dancers appear enraptured, like statues in a group portrait with the audience, in the next moment the lighting dramaturgy arouses curiosity about the yet unknown events. The atmosphere is particularly intense in those moments when one stands in total darkness. The acoustic dramaturges of this production are Jörg Ritzenhoff and Franco Mento, whose sound repertoire ranges from a sudden loud pulse to an acoustic ride in a submarine. People's feelings are in their ears, and our mood changes with the sound. Cocoon's production develops a beautiful keyboard of emotions in the interplay of dance, light and music, which can be experienced with pleasure in a space liberated from all conventions. (Thomas Linden, tanzweb.org, accessed: 12.11.2023

 It is an encounter with the walls, the floor, the door frames of the room. To the body - and with the body. In "Chora", CocoonDance director Rafaële Giovanola sends her dancers on a journey of discovery. They move through the audience in Mülheim's Ringlokschuppen, standing, walking, sitting, leaning against the wall, lithely, running, sometimes forwards, sometimes backwards. With restraint, they occasionally touch a stranger's shoulder or foot. It's not about making contact, it's more like a gentle nudge, a motivation for more sensitive perception. ... The view of the others and of the space is intensified in this way. They fall, hold on, search. And for a powerful moment, Cocoon's typical creatures appear, with their hard, energetic movements that question the human body. To loud beats, they throw themselves over three platforms, which are the only stage elements that occupy the space. Otherwise, the evening remains a rather tentative research. (Sarah Heppekausen, tanz, 12.2023)

At its core, it is about the essence of movement, which is expressed in the different media of light, sound and dance. The quality of the Cocoon productions - which emerge from the signature of choreographer Rafaele Giovanola and dramaturge Rainald Endrass - lies in the correspondence between external and internal movement. This time, the focus is entirely on the effect of the performance. What counts is what you see. The audience follows the dancers who, towards the end, transform into a multifaceted body that drifts through the space like a wave of bodies.

CocoonDance is always innovative, this time the team from Bonn seems to be working out where the path will lead in the future. (Thomas Linden, Choices, 28.11.2023) - Translated by DeepL