COLOURS in the Streets
company Idem: Three Ages

We tend to see human nature as divided into two antithetical poles: good versus bad, female versus male, body versus mind. However, there is a third element that needs to considered, the hyphen, as it were, that links the duality. Taking this aspect into account leads to a better understanding of ourselves; we have a beginning, a middle and an end, we find unity and circularity. The number three is central to the new work by Switzerland’s company Idem, which participated in the second COLOURS festival, when its members danced for everyone on the streets of Stuttgart. Three Ages, which will be performed in Stuttgart in a version lasting around half an hour, translates the concept of the triptych from the visual arts into dance, employing three energies and three rhythms to portray life as a complex mix of memory, present and hopes for the future. Using elements of hip hop, breakdancing, Capoeira and contemporary dance the two choreographers Clément Bugnon and Matthias Kass link three different periods in a human lifetime and three types of movement, which only produce a whole in combination with one another. The music for the piece is by the Polish composer Szymon Brzoska, who has a special love for contemporary dance and has written music for numerous choreographers.

“Suppleness, close connections that constantly seek balance, and then a harmonic geometry. The gestural language of the company Idem in its new creation ‘Three Ages’ reminds us that contemporary dance does not have to be abstract but can also be a narrative poem.” – 24 Heures, Lausanne