R&SONANCES : Residency & Documentary
It is fundamental to us to plead for a new engagement with reality which takes into account the incarnate character of our existence, and reconciles us with the world.
(Matthew B. Crawford)
r & s o n a n c e s : the documentary
Five international dancers: each with a unique style, diverse experiences, and distinct personalities. Yet they all navigate the paradoxes of their profession—listening to their bodies while mastering them, following instinct and taking control. Between impulse and control. Spontaneity and rigor. Sensation and representation. Can they reconnect with the origin of dance, that primal, pre-verbal space of true resonance?
Over three years, we worked closely with these dancers on a series of site-specific choreographies. We then brought them together for a final experiment: a self-directed residency, without a project, without a choreographer. The camera accompanied them through this shared exploration, tracing a collective return to the roots of dance. What can movement reveal when freed from external authority and judgment? We weren’t sure what would happen — only that something real, fragile, and necessary could emerge. And it did.
A film by Stéphanie Paillet & Nicolas Van Achter, featuring Maya Balam Meyong (BE), Jade Fehlmann (FR), Grace Lyell (UK), Francesco Misceo (IT), and Mike Tyus (USA).
We wanted to make ourselves available to dance, from the inside out. To listen to what it is beneath the surface, beyond its commercial or fashionable uses, outside the frame of the stage. We’re asking if dance might still be something more essential — a gesture that speaks to the very heart of being human, and maybe even something older, something shared across the living world. A pulse that’s been there from the beginning. From before time had a name.
a b o u t t h e m u s i c
For four years, we kept the suspense. In the Belgian contemporary dance scene, whispers started to grow, eventually catching the attention of Thierry De Mey — the godfather of dance film (yes, even Beyoncé has copied him). Beyond being a visionary filmmaker, Thierry is also a composer of experimental and contemporary music. And he offered us an unbelievable gift: open access to his personal archive — years of unpublished compositions, stored across hard drives like hidden treasure. He gave us this, freely. No conditions. Just trust. It means the world to us. A gesture of immense generosity — and a resonance we carry forward.
Edited by Esteban Lloret Linares, our documentary seems to move musically across the flesh of the world. There was a kind of deep match, an almost uncanny resonance between our images and the music released by Denovali and Erased Tapes, labels we often turned to during late-night backups and first rough viewings after a day of shooting. The depth and diversity of their catalogue — from post-classical to ambient drone, from experimental jazz to abstract electronics — seemed to echo the very texture of what we were capturing. Greg Haines, Birds of Passage, LTO underlined, without ever disturbing, the metaphysical questions that quietly pulse through the film and the mystery of the non-verbal language unfolding within.