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Fabrice Lambert: Aujourd’hui, Sauvage. 19.09.2018, Le Toboggan Décines-Charpieu, La Biennale de la Danse, Lyon.

Seven dancers, losely limbed, yet very attentive towards each other, introduce themselves to the members of the audience by introducing themselves into the audience space. Meanwhile, the live drummer is quietly waiting for his moment to cover the stage with his thundering rolls, in absolute opposition to the translucent concentrically aligned, large-scale gauze sheets hanging off the stage’s ceiling. Concealing – or rather revealing – the endless walks of those inside.

There has to be a mention of the highly intriguing lighting without which „Aujourd’hui, Sauvage” (could read like „These Feral Days“ in English) would not be able to play that stunning game of physicality, of texture and surface, changing the depth of this highly light-responsive fabric by simply blending in or out a notch or two, only to be further strengthened through the barely recognisable body parts being projected on it towards the end of the show. Yet, the movement’s impact falters, the guitar loop is never-peaking and there is a high-level reach of boredom which somehow enters into the equation, whilst the announced wildness in both title and programme text seems to be shy and contained, and superseded by a game of „curtaining” the danced action – up and down and half-way up and down, they pull the strings and watch it end.