Director of the Théâtre Garonne in Toulouse, Aurélien Bory holds a place of his own on the French dance scene, with a scenographic style recognizable among all others — a legacy, no doubt, of an earlier life devoted to architectural acoustics. Each of his creations explores and puts the space of the stage into play; this past January, he launched in Toulouse the first French festival entirely devoted to scenography. His latest piece, made for the Festival Montpellier Danse, grew out of his meeting with world-renowned guitarist Thibaut Garcia. A keen connoisseur of John Dowland (16th-17th centuries), Garcia steered him toward Seaven teares, a work for lute and voice he had already performed with countertenor Philippe Jaroussky.
On stage, the musician shares the space with dancer Aure Wachter — a performer with Rachid Ouramdane and Jann Gallois, and a singer with Les Cris de Paris. Their duo takes the form of a pavane, that "walk for two," and wagers that "music is dance, dance is music": a play of "body-instruments" in which one sings while the other dances, against a backdrop of melancholy. One question remains: how do you give shape to tears on a stage? Aurélien Bory answers with a work in which "liquid elements" will flow, but which will be above all the embodiment of that sad music that does us good — melancholy understood as an openness to reverie.