Ideas in motion

The Décalages theater company will be showcasing their distinctive combination of drama, acrobatics and dance next week on the big stage at Alfred ve Dvoře. Over three consecutive evenings, they will be performing a trio of works developed over the past three years: Obsession, TaBalada and Bez země.

The Franco-Czech theatrical ensemble was founded by the principal performers, Seiline Vallée and Salvi Salvatore, in 2007. They aim to express the human condition through a unique blend of performance disciplines. The two performers bring very different backgrounds to their work.

Vallée began her life in classical theater, working as a professional actress in Paris until she became frustrated by the rigid dynamics of text-based performances based largely on vocal acting. "I realized communicating with my head and not my body was not enough," she says.

She enrolled in the prestigious Jacques Lecoq theater school in Paris, which specializes in movement. There, she was encouraged to "develop [her] own creation" while the combination of commedia dell'arte and movement filled in what had been missing for her - almost. Feeling the need for more physical expression, she went to trapeze school, an experience she describes as "original and organic." She jokingly adds, "The feeling is great when your head is upside down."

Salvatore left a job as a postman in Moravia to move to Prague, where he took up fencing and immersed himself in street theater, becoming skilled with puppets and stilts. He and Vallée met while performing together at Divaldo Continuo, where, Vallée says, they had an "instant, organic connection." Above all, they shared an interest in performing "without boundaries," which led to the creation of their own troupe. There was also, Vallée notes, "the vulgar and concrete fact that we needed to work under a company."

Vallée and Salvatore comprise the core of the company, taking on additional performers and technicians as needed for their productions.

Their inspiration comes from experience. "Life moves me, observing people and situations," Salvatore says. Vallée also finds inspiration in the human condition and relationships between people, and additionally cites famed British theater director Peter Brook, and dance theater in general, as influences.

All of Décalages' work is original. "Salvi or I will have an idea, then we will discuss it with each other, and it will evolve," Vallée says. She does most of the writing, while Salvatore deals with the choreography and technical needs of the production. The rehearsal process can take up to three months, during which the shape of the piece may change dramatically. "Sometimes, I find that what I visualize on paper will not work technically up in the air," says Salvatore.

Vallée and Salvatore are always the principal performers in their pieces, but they enlist many collaborators, ranging from playwrights to tweak their stories to lighting and design professionals and occasionally musicians. In some cases, they also take on a director; for Obsession, they asked Irina Andreeva, one of the cofounders of the Russian physical theater company Teatr Novogo Fronta, to direct.

"Strong in her universe" is how Vallée and Salvatore describe Andreeva, noting that her life as a dancer working mostly on the floor (as opposed to up on stilts or a trapeze) added another dimension to the work. Describing herself and Salvatore as "poetic, light and up in the air," Vallée says Andreeva brings a "grounded, harder edge to the piece."

Management at Alfred ve Dvoře, with whom the duo has a longstanding relationship, asked them to put together a showcase of their work. Obsession looks at the limits of a relationship between a man and a woman through 12 characters, all played by Vallée and Salvatore. TaBalada explores ideas about death, and how society treats the elderly, drawing on the ancient Japanese practice of obasute, wherein the elderly were taken to die on a sacred mountainside. Bez země is a fantasy about youth for a puppet and two actors, inspired by Peter Pan.

All of the performances have little or no dialogue - a conscious decision, Vallée says, "to make them accessible to everyone."

The mixture of disciplines makes for very evocative theater. Amid the aerial acrobatics, dance, music and acting, Décalages offers some powerful material to make audiences think.

Kelly Panayi can be reached at
features@praguepost.com