In her film Bamba Sí, Maya Balam Meyong playfully dissolves the boundaries between the real and the virtual, nature and artifice. Set in the late 21st century, the film imagines a world in which beings seem to have grown estranged from their own presence. But, in this universe where everything appears visible, something remains elusive.
At the heart of what appears to be a museum, a big pile of earth is displayed like a relic of a vanished world. From this soil emerges a dance whose scale, origin, and very reality remain uncertain. Like a manifestation of Pan, she embodies the untameable mystery of nature. Around her, darkness radiates and light turns liquid. The space itself suddenly feels permeated by other dimensions of life.
Through dance, passages open between worlds that may never have been separate. Bodies discover themselves through weight, breath, resistance, and surrender. Every movement awakens other possible movements, allowing parallel temporalities and unseen dimensions to emerge.
Mystery is not something to be resolved, but something to inhabit. Told entirely through movement, textures, light and music, Bamba Sí invites each viewer to imagine the realities that might inhabit its images. Neither a celebration of nature's triumph over technology nor a nostalgic return to lost origins, the film approaches dance as a language capable of crossing ages, worlds and forms of existence.
produced by THE DANCING SOCIETY & NEO TENdirected by MAYA BALAM MEYONGassisted by ROMANE PETITperformers : MAYA BALAM MEYONG, EURYDICE GAUTIER, THOMASIN GÜLGEÇ photography, camera and editing : NICOLAS VAN ACHTERadditional camera : STEPHANIE PAILLETset design and carpentry : ERIC PAUPORTEcostume design : IRINA DZHUS