Contemporary Dance Festival 22. The Tree. Carolyn Carlson Company

“Fire is the ultra-living element. It is intimate and it is universal. It lives in our heart. He lives in the sky. It rises from the depths of matter and offers itself as a love. Or it can descend into substance and hide there, latent and repressed, like hatred and revenge. Of all phenomena, he is truly the only one to whom the opposite values ​​of good and evil can be so clearly attributed. It shines in Heaven. Burn in the hell. It is sweetness and torture […]. It can contradict itself: therefore, it is one of the principles for understanding the Universe“.

Gaston Bachelard, excerpt from The Psychoanalysis of Fire, 1938

The icon of dance Carolyn Carlson returns to Ferrara – Friday 14 October in the National Premiere at the “Claudio Abbado” Municipal Theater – with his latest great creation. The Tree it is a poetic reflection on humanity and nature on the brink of shipwreck. After Eau, Pneuma and Now, it closes the cycle of choreographies inspired by Gaston Bachelard, French philosopher of science.
Starting from Des Fragments d’une poétique du feu, Bachelard’s literary work, published posthumously in 1988, the American choreographer has chosen the poetic and symbolic power of flames and more generally the complexity of natural elements as inspiration for her new creation. She renews her collaboration with the light designer Rémi Nicolas, who creates imaginary landscapes for The Tree that invite an inner journey and contemplation.
L’visual artist Gao Xingjian in turn he sublimates the scenes with his own abstract paintings made with Indian ink and projected in different sequences.
In the union between the virtuosity of the dancers and the dreamlike vision of Carolyn Carlson, The Tree it is a powerful and vital declaration of love towards a nature on the brink of collapse, in the hope that, like a phoenix, it can be reborn from its own ashes. “We are not strangers to the Universe; just as the changes of the seasons govern every creation, we are seeds that evolve in cycles, in rhythm ”, explains Carolyn Carlson.
“The Tree Paintings – continues the choreographer – there are many metaphorical visions of nature, ephemeral, mysterious and intangible, placed on different levels, discovered little by little – painting upon painting upon painting… – with the basic idea that we too, like Nature, transform ourselves. These daydreams want to remind us of the Nordic landscapes and mythologies of past centuries, especially those of the Finnish epic Kalevala. The nine interpreters represent the primary instincts from which we have distanced ourselves: the timeless awareness of the incessant harmony in the void left by our sighs, the inner fires that feed and consume the human soul, the universal flame of love. We are intimately and universally linked to nature and the elements, we are the trees, the wind, the water, the earth, the air, the stars, the fire, the ash … We are the harmony of the whole“.

Carolyn Carlson
Born in California, Carolyn Carlson defines herself above all as a nomad. From the San Francisco Bay to the University of Utah, from the company of Alwin Nikolais in New York to that of Anne Béranger in France, from the Paris Opera to the La Fenice theater dance in Venice, from the Théâtre de la Ville in Helsinki, from the Ballet de the Bordeaux Opera at the Paris Cartoucherie, from the Venice Biennale to Roubaix, Carolyn Carlson is a tireless traveler, always on the road to develop and share her poetic universe.
Heir to Alwin Nikolais’ concepts of movement, composition and pedagogy, she arrived in France in 1971. With Rituel pour un rêve mort, the following year she signed her poetic manifesto, with an approach she has never abandoned since: a dance aimed at philosophy and spirituality.
At the term “choreography”, Carolyn Carlson prefers that of “visual poetry” to describe her work. She gives life to works that testify to her poetic thought, and with them to a complete, total art form, in which movement occupies a privileged place.
For four decades, its influence and success have been considerable in many European countries. You have played a key role in bringing out French and Italian contemporary dance with the GRTOP at the Opéra de Paris and the Teatrodanza at the Fenice.
He has made more than one hundred plays, many of which constitute the most important pages in the history of dance, from Density 21.5 to The Year of the horse, from Blue Lady to Steppe, from Maa to Signes, from Writings on water to Inanna.
In 2006 his work was awarded by the Venice Biennale with the first Golden Lion ever awarded to a choreographer. He is also Commander of Arts and Letters and Officer of the Legion of Honor, the highest honor conferred by the French state to those who have obtained merits in the civil, cultural, military and sports fields.
Founder of the Atelier de Paris-Carolyn Carlson at the Cartoucherie in 1999, she was, with her Carolyn Carlson Company, an artist associated with the Théâtre National de Chaillot from 2014 to 2016.
In 2017, in parallel with the company’s core business, new forms of creation were born, including an exhibition and a danced feature film. In 2019 she obtained French nationality and was elected a member of the choreography department of the Academy of Fine Arts the following year.

Carolyn Carlson Company
Carolyn Carlson Company wants to be a beehive, a space of creativity and freedom in which gesture and poetic thought are intertwined. After nine years as director of the Center Chorégraphique National de Roubaix, Carolyn Carlson created the Carolyn Carlson Company, in residence from 2014 to 2016 at the Théâtre National de Chaillot.
With an extraordinary repertoire and accompanied by dancers faithful to its universe, the “chorégraphe-étoile” continues its creative approach. Every year, the Carolyn Carlson Company carries out numerous large-scale projects, creations, broadcasts of repertoire pieces to the most prestigious ballet companies, exhibitions, films … world.

Artistic credits

The Tree (Fragments of poetics on fire)
Carolyn Carlson Company
Creation 2021 for 9 dancers

Choreography and Scenography | Carolyn Carlson
Choreographic Assistant | Colette Malye
Interpreters | Chinatsu Kosakatani, Juha Marsalo, Céline Maufroid, Riccardo Meneghini, Isida Micani, Yutaka Nakata, Alexis Ochin, Sara Orselli, Sara Simeoni
Music | Aleksi Aubry-Carlson, René Aubry, Maarja Nuut, K. Friedrich Abel
Lights | Rémi Nicolas, assisted by Guillaume Bonneau
Pictorial projections | Gao Xingjian
Props | Gilles Nicolas and Jank Dage
Costumes | Elise Dulac and Atelier of the Théâtre National de Chaillot. Thanks to Chrystel Zingiro
Production | Carolyn Carlson Company
In co-production with | Théâtre National de Chaillot, Théâtre Toursky Marseille, Ballet du Nord / Center Chorégraphique National Roubaix Hauts-de-France, Equilibre Nuithonie Friborg
Residences in CDCN-Atelier de Paris, salle Allende (Mons-en-Baroeul) and Kiosk (Marquette-lez-Lille). With the support of Crédit du Nord.
Thanks to Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative, Studio 28 Roubaix-Compagnie Zahrbat, Domaine of Chaumont-sur-Loire, Michelle Kokosowski and Martine Dionisio.

The Carolyn Carlson Company is subsidized by the French Ministry of Culture (DGCA)