Skid

Oscillating between verticality and horizontality, Skid is presented on a 34-degree inclined platform that plunges directly into the orchestra pit. Inspired by the Earth’s gravitational acceleration of 9.8 metres per second, this piece by Damien Jalet, associate artist of the Geneva-based company, was created in 2017 for the GoteborgsOperans Danskompani.

With only two entrances into the angular space: above and below, the dancers draw lines of physical history between appearance and disappearance. Each movement in this choreographic exploration is created from the limits and new possibilities of the slope.

Sometimes epic, dangerous, humorous or moving, Skid’s slope creates a chain reaction of physical and emotional events where the physical relationship with others is often the only solace against the call of the void.

”The stage set-up, a steeply sloping white stage literally plunging into the orchestra pit, forces the performers to resist gravity. The first dancer, initially stuck to the ground, appears at the very top of the stage, gradually rising like the first Homo Erectus, followed by a dozen others who, using unprecedented strategies and sliding up and down until they disappear, struggle, alone or in duet, against the earth’s attraction.”
Sonia Schoonejans, Ballet 2000

”Damien Jalet directs a choreography of surprising beauty. […] The gesture is powerful for what it is – bodies taming a new space – as well as for what it says: a powerful impulse of solidarity, of common strength, where each and everyone is able to blossom with the others.”
Amélie Bertrand, Danses avec la Plume

”With this ballet, […] Damien Jalet rethinks dance. He weakens the dancer who is used to moving on a flat stage. He thus takes him to the limits of his usual sensations.”
Jacques Schmitt, ResMusica

”Skid is a major piece in which Damien Jalet has constructed a metaphor of humanity, from birth to death but in reverse. He invents a dance that speaks of metaphysics with a constant sensuality, compressing all our emotions.”
Jean-Frédéric Saumont, Danses avec la Plume