Six pantsula dancers brought together by the choreographer Jeremy Nedd tap their feet to a sustained rhythm in a dynamic set of moves. In The Ecstatic, the choreographer – originally from Brooklyn but now based in Basel, Switzerland – takes this dance style with its frenetic footwork that emerged in the townships of Johannesburg in the 1960s and combines it with praise break, a form of sung and danced praise in Pentecostal churches in the United States that produces a trance-like state. From “waddling like a duck”, which is what the Zulu word pantsula means, to the fervour of prayer, the performers abandon themselves to an ecstatic trance, somewhere between happiness and sorrow. In the similarities between these two social practices, the choreographer invites us to question the links between religion, colonial histories and black corporalities.
Création 2019 / Conception, chorégraphie : Jeremy Nedd, Impilo Mapantsula / Performance, chorégraphie : Kgotsofalang Moshe Mavundla, Tommy Tee Motsapi, Bonakele Mambotjie Masethi, Sicelo Malume ka Xaba, Sello Zilo Modiga, Vusi 2.2 Mdoyi / Régie générale et création lumière : Thomas Giger / Régie plateau : Laura Knüsel / Musique et composition : Xzavier Stone, Modulaw / Création sonore : Fabrizio Di Salvo / Dramaturgie : Anta Helena Recke / Regards extérieurs : Deborah Joyce Holman, Maximilian Hanisch / Production Suisse : Ursula Haas / Production Afrique du Sud : Daniela Goeller
Production assistance : Kihako Narisawa, Lucas Del Rio Estevez / Diffusion : Caroline Froelich | Moin Moin Productions
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Coproduction : Kaserne Basel, Arsenic Lausanne, Theater Tuchlaube Aarau / Soutien : Fachausschuss Tanz & Theater BS/BL, Südkulturfonds, Pro Helvetia, Schweizer Kulturstiftung, Migros Kulturprozent, Ernst Göhner Stiftung, Stanley Thomas Johnson Stiftung, Jacqueline Spengler-Stiftung, Schweizer Interpretenstiftung, Wilhelm und Ida Hertner-Strasser Stiftung