ON TOUR
CHIRON
IN ARIES' CYCLE
The cycle takes the mythology and the astrology of Chiron (the centaur also known as the wounded healer) as a poetic framework for addressing topics revolving around queerness, sense of self, wounds and the capacity to heal them. In Greek mythology, Chiron was a Centaur raised by Apollo who initiated him to the arts of healing, music and prophecy, that which makes him differ from the other violent and unruly Centaurs. When he got injured by a poisoned arrow, he was left with a wound that never healed. In astrology, the minor planet Chiron is called “the wounded healer” and represents our deepest wounds and our capacity to heal. The sign Aries represents the ego, willpower, desire and the warrior within us. When Chiron is in Aries it addresses our deepest wounds in relation to our sense of self.
ON TOUR
With Shadowboxing, Frédéric Gies channels years of research around club dancing as an art form. They break down the barriers between popular and professional dance(s) in this poetic experimentation of a dance floor on a dance floor.
ON TOUR
Scorpio, in astrology, represents death, rebirth, transformation and regeneration. It is associated with deep emotional experiences. Terpsichore refers to the Greek muse of dance and to the asteroid Terpsichore. In the fall 2021, this asteroid returns to its placement in the sky when I was born.
ON TOUR
In French, Jumelles means both “(female) twins” and “binoculars”. In Jumelles, Anne Juren and Frédéric Gies take on the task of portraying one another in the form of two twin dancing portraits
Previous
Productions
-
A new version of Ribbon Dance where the techno track is replaced by a recording of “The manufacture of our dressage” by Frédéric Gies, giving an new political color to the piece.
Watch the trailer HERE
* Pricing and more information on demand -
A performance/ritual for one spectator at a time, in an intimate setting that addresses the spiritual dimension of dance and its relationship to healing.
* Pricing and more information on demand -
An incantation in which the mythological figures of the faun and of the nymph merge. A dialogue with with Nijinsky's Afternoon Of A Faun that escapes the paradigm of the hunter and the hunted present and proposes another economy of relationships.
Watch the trailer HERE
* Pricing and more information on demand -
A lecture performance diving in the stories and dances Frédéric Gies experienced through their carrier. The performance is also a tribute to dancers without whom they wouldn’t be who they are today.
Watch the full caption HERE* Pricing and more information on demand
-
A 4 to 10-hour long performance that is a club night and a club night that is a performance.
Watch the trailer HERE
* Pricing and more information on demand -
A manifestation of the drives and forces that set off bodies or things in movement and the movement potential to self-generate. Although it inevitably communicate something else, this celebratory dance doesn’t seek to communicate anything but itself and the subterraneous currents that traverse it.
* Pricing and more information on demand -
A 3 hours and 38 minutes dance performance, in a space infused with the beats of a techno set by Fiedel and filled with a floor installation by the visual artist Anton Stoianov, which evokes the archive of a dance floor. As Frédéric Gies unfolds their dance, the performance becomes an invitation for individual and collective movements.
* Pricing and more information on demand
Press
Reviews
“A ravishing cast of technos sylphides raves in formation, in an extatic and delicate homage to Dominique Bagouet; think Berghain cancan with extreme somatic smarts, and bass resonating all the way to your ribcage.”
“Det är en dramatisk dansföreställning med melankolisk undertext (…). Mot slutet sker det med starka sceniska uttryck, till briljant techno-musik med touch av Berlin, som verkligen gestaltar sårbarhet och djärvhet på egensinnigt vis.”
“Koreografin är djurisk men elegant, frustande och sårbar. ”
“En dans som är öppen och helt naken, om än inte helt bokstavligen, inför det kroppsliga begäret oavsett vilket sammanhang eller vilken tidsepok den verkar befinna sig i. Det är som om Gies vägrar inordna sig i någon kategori utan hela tiden söker sig mot ett utryck som är lika rent som rått.”
“Gies is interested in the interplay of club dance and community, of collective experience and self-forgetfulness. In “Shadowboxing” they become a raver pro toto. The ally of all dancers and all dancing, they pour their complicity into an intense stage action. The audience is ecstatic and still brimming with energy when the performance ends. (...) [DJ Fiedel] and Gies opened one of the toughest doors in the world and gave the Tanzhaus the Berghain magic. Not everyone is that lucky.”
“Lika delar knäpp som frisk, tänk Isadora Duncan till tung technobas, invaggar den antikiserande koreografin tillsammans med den hypnotiska musiken oss i en sällsam konstellation, ömsom vild och hämningslös som Dionysos, ömsom harmonisk och klar som Apollon.”
“Gies skilfully works the entire room, sometimes punkish, sometimes Puckish, locking eyes with everyone. On occasion they seem weightless, at other times a sinewy blur of tattooed flesh. As the techno picks up in pace, the crowd follow this incredible dancer, and the party begins. It’s exciting and unique, part durational performance, part club night.”
“Already after an hour I start to feel tired and I wish I had brought snacks. (...) After another hour, I have stopped focusing on Gies, now they are just one in the crowd, a club visitor among others. A kind of trans-like, euphoric feeling appears, an elevated state where I move without thinking. And when I sit on the floor to take a short break, I see the beauty of the individual bodies’ individual choreography. The difference between club and cultural institution suddenly feels very small.””
“Good Girls Go To Heaven, Bad Girls Go Everywhere is, as literally as can be possible, a work that escapes being presented, or escapes relying on the method of presentation in order to propose and communicate what it is there to propose or communicate. Everything about Bad Girls is focus given to something, for a period of time, and then not anymore.”
“With its organically pure, minimalist idea the solo manages to portray the clearly deliberate, but at the same time say so much more, and not in the least the unexpected.”
“Perhaps it is essentially life that Gies’ energetic solo is all about. Be that as it may - physically intelligent it is. And once again it is at Weld you will experience small-scale works that raise major concerns.”
“Queens of the fauns är danshistoria kommenterad som lust i ett ovanligt dansant samtidsexperiment.”
“När man inte längre behöver bryta mot införstådda traditioner – som Nijinskij gjorde med den klassiska baletten – kan man istället återvända till dem, syna historien mot samtiden. (...) I “Queens of the fauns” är det som om koreografen Frédéric Gies och partnern Elizabeth Ward väcker liv i en mytomspunnen gestalt ur konst- och danshistorien och placerar den i klubbmiljö för att undersöka förståelsen av kroppen, sexualiteten, kontakten och trancen.”
“Gies fångar något av den nattliga världens ickeverbala kommunikation: de små tecknen, kontakten mellan två människor som möts för första gången i ett hav av andra och som skapar en egen liten värld där. När ljusen tänds efter föreställningens slut känns det som om vi alla, för en kort stund, var en del av den världen.”
“Grand jeté blandas med det där bredbenta marscherandet på stället som man ofta ser på Berghains nedre, hårda technogolv. Men ofta blir det tydligt att de båda dansformerna har fler likheter än man kan tro, om än utförda i olika tempo. Armar sträcks upp i eleganta formationer, kroppar tänjs och utmanas.”
“Dansen upprättar istället en plats där lust och begär går i fler än en riktning.”
“Vaslav Nijinskijs En fauns eftermiddag (L’Après-midi d’un faune) var banbrytande vid premiären 1912, men var just en sådan sexuellt laddad skildring av jakt och byte. När dansarna Frédéric Gies och Elizabeth Ward går i dialog med denna danshistoriska milstolpe lyckas de uppnå något så ovanligt som fullkomlig jämställdhet. ”