Cédric Andrieux is a 36 year-old dancer from France. We know this because it is the first thing we hear at the start of the eponymous show at On The Boards through the 16th with a youth matinee on Sunday. Most of this performance’s 80 minutes feature Andrieux, the lone performer, telling us about his life. The dramas are small. The story focuses on his career with only glancing references to his mother, boyfriends, and poverty. Even those references provide vital context for the story of his work. For all its simplicity, this story leaves us uplifted, entertained, and informed. It is everything one wants from a show.
Andrieux speaks softly with a moderate accent and the consistent upward lilt of an insecure teenage girl. His phrases only descend to mark the ends of his paragraphs. He is a dancer, not a vocalist, not a speaker; yet he is a performer, one who is at such apparent ease before the audience that we are pleased to give him our attention. If this weren’t enough of an attraction, the performance also gives a great bang for the buck with extracts from pieces by Philippe Tréhet, Merce Cunningham, and Trisha Brown, as well as Jérôme Bel.
For those who’ve not seen the work of these choreographers firsthand, the chance to see excerpts performed by someone who has worked directly with them is not to be missed. Not only does Andrieux, a former member of the now defunct Merce Cunningham Dance Company, perform excerpts from the repertory, he also gives us a bit of the daily warm-ups. We see the direct relation between the practice and the performance and all of it is integrated into this dancer’s story: his journey to this moment with us right now, performing a piece by Jérôme Bel.
The program credits Bel with the concept of this performance, but Bel has clearly provided more than just a concept. He has crafted something here. Bel is the author of the work, structuring a text of found materials, words and stories both verbal and purely physical.
The act of art-making is one of selection and Bel’s choice, ordering, and pacing of Andrieux’s life story is flawless, each piece contributing to the whole. There is a coming-of-age element to Andrieux’s story as he grows past some of his performer’s self-consciousness and insecurity to find comfort and ease in dance and in himself.
Such a story can hardly avoid feeling a bit like the product of therapy, and in that vein Andrieux is, of course, his own antagonist. Cunningham is the avatar of that antagonism and Andrieux only comes to peace with himself when he comes to terms with his experience in Cunningham’s company.
Nonetheless Andrieux’s journey from Cunningham to Bel is one of ease and relief to us all. His joy in the intimate relationship with the audience that Bel’s work affords is infectious; we leave with a heightened sense of humanity and love for community. Is there anything more one can hope to achieve on stage?
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