Dancing in the sands: Noé Soulier’s nomadic choreography transforms AlUla’s desert

euronews (in English)

A unique dance performance staged in AlUla's desert, marked the pre-opening of Villa Hegra, a Saudi-French cultural institution that aims to unite art, heritage, and community.

Transcript

00:00Desert was an ally because, I mean first it

00:29created a space that was shared between the audience and the performers so we

00:36are all in the same space and then the sand for example it creates a very

00:40specific music in some way when you dance on the sand you hear the steps

00:44and also the sun flies so it gives it produces almost like a kind of remnants

00:51of the movement in the air you see the trace of the movement in the air

00:59also there is this amazing scale so there is so much depth you could never

01:21have as much depth on this theater and now it's like maybe like a hundred

01:26meter or I don't know so when the dancers go really far you see them

01:29becoming very very small and they can also come very close so you can really

01:33play with this depth

01:57Ville Écora is born out of Saudi-French friendship. It's a cultural institution that

02:04fosters dialogue and cooperation between artists, researchers from Saudi Arabia

02:09and France. The goal is to create a hub of contemporary creation for all the

02:14types of arts whether it's visual arts, performing arts, poetry, literacy and to

02:19as well a hub for educational and artistic programming for the local and

02:23the regional community

02:42One French artist, Hugo Schiavi, and a Saudi-American artist, Sarah Brahim, and

02:50they worked together on the research for one year working with scientists from

02:55Alula, archaeologists, etc., and representatives of the local community of Alula

03:01into the commission of an artwork so you saw a sculpture in the desert which is

03:08an artistic intervention within the landscape, a performance associating 20

03:14members of the community using sculptures and glass-blown sculptures as

03:21instruments, music instruments

03:32It's absolutely a unique experience coming to Alula. I can't remember, maybe

03:38this is my over the 20th time that I've been here and I'm still fascinated

03:43every single time by the wonderful landscape. There's a lot to learn from

03:48Alula in terms of history, in terms of the landscape, in terms of even our

03:52movement within the space which was also part of the core thinking of our

03:57pre-opening cycle, thinking about our role within the landscape, our role

04:02within this space

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