P R O D U C T I O N S

NEVER ENDING (STORY)

Choreography: Mathilde Monnier

With: Ty Boomershine, Emma Lewis, Jone San Martin, Gesine Moog, Marco Volta

Light Design: Martin Beeretz
Sound Design: Mattef Kuhlmey
Artistic Collaboration: Stéphane Bouquet
Costume: Mathilde Monnier
Costume Assistance: Nora Stocker
Technical Direction: Martin Beeretz

“When I received this invitation to come talk about Merce Cunningham’s work, I felt it was time for me to come and do it.” (David Antin)

This is almost the way a poem by David Antin starts. This poem, improvised by Antin during a festival in honour of John Cage in May of 1989, is also how Never Ending Story starts… and, for that matter, started. Ty Boomershine and the Dance On Ensemble invited me to reply, in my own way, to Story, a work that Merce Cunningham premiered in 1963.

“So I felt it was time for me to come and do it.”

Someone comes onto the stage and tells you some stories. Stories about structure and rhythm. Stories about feelings and repetitions. The story of the feeling of the dance that’s about to appear.  The story of the gestures taking place whilst this stream of words produces it. By telling stories, dancers prepare themselves to listen to their own voices and to feel their own bodies move.  While talking, they experience the thought as it happens to a mind and, above all, to a body.   By “it happens”, one must mean everything but an abstract process: Thought is far from being a disembodied concept, indeed, thought is literally body-produced and it acts upon the body in return.

To talk and to dance, talking as you dance, dancing as you talk. To dance as an effort to get closer to what thought is, but also to the singular tone of your own voice formulating a thought.

This work is performed in the evening Making Dances” as a choreographic response to Merce
Cunningham’s “Story”, but can be presented singularly.

Production: Dance On/DIEHL+RITTER
In cooperation with: Kammerspiele München
With the support of: Montpellier Danse à l’Agora, cité internationale de la danse/ Avec le soutien de Montpellier Danse à l’Agora, cité internationale de la danse

past performances:
  • 18. May 2022, Making Dances | never ending (Story) | Mathilde Monnier | Bundeskunsthalle Bonn
  • 02. April 2022, never ending (Story) | Mathilde Monnier & Dance On Ensemble | Charleroi Danse, Belgium
  • 14. July 2021, never ending (Story) | Making Dances | Mathilde Monnnier | Julidans, Amsterdam
  • 13. July 2021, never ending (Story) | Making Dances | Mathilde Monnnier | Julidans, Amsterdam