The new creation by dancer Leïla Ka, entitled Puffs, was specially created for the Danse Enlargee competition, for which it won the first prize of €13,000 on Sunday June 26 at Espace Cardin. The competition honored the collective and original projects of young dancers from all walks of life. From September 2022, Leïla Ka will go on tour in France and in neighboring countries with a new piece, her third, which will include Puffs.
On stage, five women lined up and dressed in colorful dresses wipe their faces bathed in imaginary sobs. «Carriers of sorrow and of a community of feminine destinies”, as choreographer and dancer Leïla Ka asserts, they embody the pain endured by women throughout the world.
The choice of costumes is not trivial: “These dresses evoke the drapes of romantic paintings that represent women who are both vulnerable, abandoned, on the edge between suffering and ecstasy”, explains Leïla Ka. She thus coats her creation with a very pictorial brilliance that supports its emotional power.
The melody of the breath
For only music, the breaths of the dancers in resonance with each movement. «The breath here is charged with a strong dramaturgical sense and makes the intimate heard, it makes this territory palpable”. says the choreographer. With grace and poetry, the bodies waver, fall, get up, rise and respond to each other, driven by a vital urgency and crowned with the salvation of tears, like shattered stars. The sobs seem to tell what was broken but preserved, so as not to lose the pieces of beauty.
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Having started with urban dances before crossing them with other influences, the choreographer wishes to offer a theatrical and narrative expression. This is particularly afforded by the freedom inherent in contemporary dance. «Performing on stage gives artists the chance to be seen, it seems important to me to defend a word full of meaning and to stage characters who have a thought to deliver”, she believes.