“The viewer of Braindance and The Moebius Strip is soon aware of death as a central theme in the impressive work of Gilles Jobin. It is not that death is movingly presented or made the subject of a conventional story line; nor are the signs of its presence ever unambiguous. On the contrary, Jobin is not a storyteller in any sense (except that he “tells the story” of the body). And it is in this respect that he seems to me to fulfil the purest demand of poetry, at least as Stéphane Mallarmé understood it: with him everything belongs, not to the explicit order, but to the realm of suggestion. Everything is latent.... For Jobin the choreographer/ geometer, that would be going too far: he nourishes an ambition to escape from anything “anecdotal”, from any indulgence, preferring to hoist himself directly into the realm of abstraction….” Sylviane Dupuis
Works and lives in Geneva.
Gilles Jobin has been internationally known since his first choreography for three dancers A+B=X created late 1997 at
the Théâtre Arsenic in Lausanne. Both the press and the public praised his work highly, which ranked him amongst the top creators of his generation. His radical artistic directions and his international recognition made him the precursor of a new generation of choreographers and,thus, became a model and the spokesman for a generation of independent young Swiss artists. Gilles Jobin is an associated artist of Bonlieu Scène Nationale d’Annecy. He is candidate at the « XI Prix Europe Nouvelles Réalités Théâtrales avec le soutien de l’Union Européenne ».
First Premiered on the 8th of may 2001, Théâtre de la Ville-Les Abbesses, Paris, France Rebuilt on the 3rd of august 2007, Teatro San Francisco, Pachuca, Mexico
Duration 60 minutes
Dancers: Tamara Bacci, Jean-Pierre Bonomo, Marie-Caroline Hominal,
Isabelle Rigat, Rudi Van Der Merwe
Music: Franz Treichler
Lighting design: Daniel Demont
Live-sound engineer : Clive Jenkins
Light engineer : Quentin Simon
Administration : Grégory Ysewyn
Production : Mélanie Rouquier
Accouting: Yves Bachelier
Production : Parano Fondation, Lausanne (CH) and 36 Gazelles, London (UK) Co-production Arsenic, Lausanne (CH) - Théâtre de la Ville, Paris (F) - Music Biennale, Zagreb (HR) - Espace Pier Paolo Pasolini, Valenciennes (F) -
Zuercher Theater Spektakel Zurich (CH).
Supports: Pro Helvetia (The Arts Council of Switzerland), Loterie Romande, Ville de Lausanne, London Arts, SSA, Fondation Stanley Thomas Johnson, Canton de Vaud. Gilles Jobin benefits of a triennal associated support (2007 to 2009) from the City of Geneva, the Canton of Geneva and Pro Helvetia. Gilles Jobin is an associated artist of Bonlieu Scène nationale, Annecy Performance in Beirut is supported by the Embassy of Switzerland in
Beirut and Pro-Helvetia in collaboration with Zico House.