within Secret Florence, 2018 Estate Fiorentina strategic project

in collaboration with Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze

Lifeguard an intimate piece that unfolds like a stroll, is the first work of a triptych that examines our notions about presence and the resonance of movement. This work aims to create an intimate space where the spectator plays an important role. Lifeguard works best in performance spaces that allow for close contact between audience and artist.

Away from the sublimated body and established aesthetic codes, with this solo, Benoît Lachambre explores the realm of the things we feel, instinctively. By paring down the use of devices and drawing inspiration from the grotesque, the choreography seeks out new dimensions of perception. The energy coming from the spectators turns into new units of measure, mobile data, that allow the performer to perceive the sensory architecture that surrounds him, comprised of living, immutable and vibrant waves. Each in their own different soundscapes, the audience and the choreographer come together in this connection.
The work, a performative action that will change with each presentation space and with each person’s perception, Lifeguard allows for a close analysis of movement, and questions the projections we make on relationships. With this trance of a naïve body, Par B.L.eux proposes that we listen to the body in a new way, drawing us into a search for the cohabitation of the senses. A new dynamic of connection is revealed, and the gaze, the touch and the movement of the members of the audience become elements of the choreography.

Benoît Lachambre re-defines the space and the sphere of feelings, and invites the spectator to share in an impersonal intimacy in a context that blurs borders and definitions about dance and movement. A subtle connection is made between the audience and the performer, between a playful trance and vulnerability, while the body’s flow in the performance creates a concrete dexterity.
While questioning the role of the artist, the audience’s passivity and the finesse of our affect, Lifeguard allows for an uninhibited discussion about existence. It is a multi-faceted installation about life, a work that is to be visited like an exhibit. The space itself is redefined, where visitors are invited to share an introspection, to just be, to feel the consciousness of the bodies. Lifeguard questions our instinct, placing the spectator in a state where the representation of the spectacular, and the immutable, can be examined in a different light.

Active in the dance community since the 1970s, Benoît Lachambre first learned about Releasing in 1985. This kinesthetic approach to movement and its use of improvisation became an important influence on his choreographic work. He decided to immerse himself in an exploratory approach to movement and its sources, to seek out the authenticity of movement. His work, both as a choreographer and a performer, has at its centre the hyper-awareness of the senses, and the connection between the somatic and the artistic is central to his practice.
He founded his own company in Montréal in 1996, christening it Par B.L.eux, ‘B.L.’ for his own initials and ‘eux’ for the artists he chooses to collaborate with, and who have become central to his artistic process.
Benoît Lachambre is one of the foremost artist-choreographer-performers of his generation. He has created 17 works for his own company since Par B.L.eux was founded, and participated in more than 20 productions by other companies, in addition to some 25 commissioned works.
With the solo, Lifeguard (2016), presented at the June Events Festival in Paris in June 2016, Benoît Lachambre seeks to further deconstruct the notion of the choreographic impulse as well as the redefinition of performer / spectator roles. He affirmed and deepened this desire in Fluid Grounds, a group work, premiered at the TransAmériques Festival in June 2018.

Choreograph-performer: Benoît Lachambre
Artistic advisors: Anouk Thériault, Georges Stamos, Valérie Lanciaux
Technic director: Samuel Thériault
Photograph (while rehearsal): Veronique Mystique
Production: Par B.L.eux
Partners: CDC Atelier de Paris – Carolyn Carlson, Centre National de la Danse de Pantin, and the Ménagerie de Verre

Receive the financial support of Conseil des Arts du Canada, Conseil des Arts et des lettres du Québec, and from Conseil des Arts de Montréal
Thanks to Alexandra Bertaut for her help with the costume.

[photo: Karolina Miernik]

SECRET FLORENCE is realized with the support of Pitti Immagine and is part of the “2018 Pitti Immagine Fairs Special Program”, promoted by the Florence Center for Italian Fashion and realized thanks to the contribution of Mise (Ministry of Economic Development) and Ice Agency within the project in support of Italian fairs and Made in Italy.