In Puz/zle, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui returns in a more abstract fashion to the notion of the multiple and of multiplicity rooted in our thought processes and the added question of how things fit together to create a new and distinct identity (like a jigsaw puzzle). Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui is intrigued by why certain connections succeed in coming together as an organic whole while others fail. And whether they actually fail or if the failure lies in our perception of order and disorder. He aims then to question the seeming importance of order and linearity and to explore if there can be more than one way of solving a puzzle, of telling a tale, of living time.
Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui questions and highlights the puzzles that lie behind human relations (emotional, intellectual, sexual), the morphology of the body, and intangibles like musical traditions inspired by and woven together from separate and multiple strands and traditions (so a liturgical composition sung in Spain might have Arabic roots, buried in the sands of time).
With A Filetta, the Corsican polyphonic group (his companions in In Memoriam and Apocrifu), the Lebanese singer Fadia Tomb El-Hage (also seen in Origine) and the Japanese flautist and percussionist Kazunari Abe by his side to dissect how a song, a composition can have various sources all at once, religious and secular, Christian and Muslim, and how traditions that we so easily name European or Oriental are never that definable and monolithic, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui salutes the delightful impurity that constitutes our lives and our planet.
Choreography: Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui Music composition: Jean-Claude Acquaviva, Kazunari Abe, Olga Wojciechowska
Additional music: Bruno Coulais, Tavagna, traditionals from Corsica, Japan and the Middle-East Set design: Filip Peeters and
Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui Lighting design: Adam Carrée Video design: Paul Van Caudenberg Costume design: Miharu Toriyama Artistic consultant: Damien Jalet Artistic advice: Guy Cools, An-Marie Lambrechts, Gabriele Miracle Musical advice: Olga Wojciechowska Costume advice & dresser: Elisabeth Kinn Svensson Sound engineer: Jens Drieghe Sound engineer A Filetta: Rémi Grasso Rehearsal director/Assistant choreographer: Nienke Reehorst Choreographic assistants: Jon Filip Fahlstrøm, Helder Seabra
Performers: Navala Chaudhari, Leif Federico Firnhaber, Damien Fournier, Ben Fury, Louise Michel Jackson, Kazutomi Kozuki / Nicola Leahey, Sang-Hun Lee, Valgerdur Rúnarsdóttir, Helder Seabra, Elie Tass, Michael Watts
Live music: A Filetta (Jean-Claude Acquaviva, Ceccè Acquaviva, Jean-Luc Geronimi, Paul Giansily, Jean Sicurani, Maxime Vuillamier), Kazunari Abe, Fadia Tomb El-Hage
Technical team: Sharp, Mathias Batsleer Photographer: Koen Broos
Production: Eastman Coproduction: Festival d’Avignon, De Singel International Arts Campus – Antwerp, Sadler’s Wells – London, Opéra de Lille, Theaterfestival Boulevard – ‘s Hertogenbosch, Les Théâtres de la Ville de Luxembourg, La Filature Scène nationale – Mulhouse, Festspielhaus - Sankt-Pölten, Fondazione Musica per Roma, Düsseldorf festival!
With the support of : De Warande – Turnhout