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Writings on Water
Filmed at the Théâtre de la Ville, 2002.
“Created in March in Venice, where Carolyn Carlson was the dance director of the Biennale for three years, this piece pulls back the curtain on the past to bring forth memories of her Venetian period in the early 1980s.
Standing in front of a hollow tree, her legs encumbered by a heavy black skirt, Carolyn Carlson frees herself from the anecdotal to become a transparent presence, a medium for forces beyond her control. Arching her back between heaven and earth, she sometimes panics, her silhouette broken by an existential torment that gives her no respite. The further she progresses in this solo, the more she seems to strip herself bare, reaching the very core of emotion to offer herself to the viewer in a rare state of destitution.
Writings on Water, a piece of acceptance and serenity, nonetheless possesses a tragic aura: it highlights the question of the body and suffering (indispensable, according to the choreographer, for understanding life), and that of loss in relation to the desire for eternity. ”
Source: Rosita Boisseau (Text from the Théâtre de la Ville program, November 2002)
