Workshop with the artist Olivier de Sagazan, author and performer of Transfiguration,
for 10 participants, dancers and/or performers

Spreading soil on one’s body is an initiation ritual which can be found in all prehistoric peoples. This action, which is naive in itself, is actually a liberating and creative triggering event. A body covered with soil moves unexpectedly in a rearworld and becomes a sort of transfigured body, between a sculpture and a phantom.
Spreading soil on one’s body is also paradoxically a way to take off an unnatural and cultural world in order to be suddenly involved in a pleasant and genuine face-to-face meeting.

Work phases:

– discovery of soil and its ductility, of smashing, which is ideal for sculpting
– exploration of soil and sculpture of the face
– a careful consideration on how to move, how to dance with earth
– narrative interaction: everyone covers someone else’s face, first without watching and then with his/her eyes wide open
– working on choreography and possible staging: everyone tries to start from his/her feelings in order to develop a short setting of about two or three minutes; the people in the group compare their ideas and invent some short settings.