By Blanca Li and the Studio Orta
Choreography and conception : Blanca Li
Music : Matthew Herbert and Tao Gutierrez
Textile architecture and conception : Lucy Orta
Installation and video conception : Jorge Orta
Video : Charles Carcopino, Maison des Arts de Créteil
Lights : Jorge Orta and Thierry Lenain.
Producers : Berlin Ballett at Komische Oper Berlin, the Compagnie Blanca Li Paris, Studio Orta Paris, la Maison des Arts de Créteil, le Moulin du Roc Niort, l’Opéra de Massy, La Caisse des Dépôts en faveur de la danse, la Direction Régionale des affaires culturelles d’Ile de France – Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication.
Borderline is a choreographic project at the intersection of dance, music and art, which explores the thin line between normality and insanity. Deeply impressed by Lucy and Jorge Orta’s project “Life Nexus“ at the Psychiatric Clinic Robert Giffard in Québec, Blanca Li managed to work with those two artists for her own creation. Their creative trio focused its research on a contemporary madness. Who is really crazy ? Lunatics walking in the street ? The world itself ? Always with humour and a great sense of comedy, Borderline explores the numerous ways of being “different”: from those who indulge in craziness to those who suffer from it. A tragicomic show, oscillating between dynamic fits and darker moments of despondency.
The choreography itself is developped from the constraint of objects created by Lucy and Jorge Orta. The accessories and moves were born at the same time, during the phase of writing. The theme of constraint is declined in various ways in every scene of this total performance, structuring the matter as well as the body, in the rythm of burlesque and reflexive situations.