Our heart beats elsewhere. In Poddema, in Combray, in the steppes of childhood, on the shore of Farghestan and Orsenna. Our heart beats for the eyes of Anna Karenina, for the outcome of Germinal. It beats for Hamlet, for Lol V. Stein, for Sailor and Lula...

Our heart beats elsewhere. In the quest for a universe full of sense, the universe of our dreams, of our imaginations, of our creations, of our subterranean pleas to the beyond of ourselves that will restitute our breadth. Are any fantasies more promising fantasies than those expressed and shared by art? Images, music, fiction… are there more diverse and open solutions to our desire for wonder?

Choreographers and directors are attuned to the living bodies and to the materiality of breaths and moods... But their power also lies in the fact that their creations transcend and go beyond literalness, revealing the other side of things, subverting the reassuring norms and equilibriums. Their fundamental identity and mission must be to destabilise.

And if their productions demonstrate critical and fantastical qualities, emotions can become powerful and overwhelming. Each step into the imagination brings with it ambiguity or a form of humour that paradoxically confirms its consistency. Beauty can rise up and tempt us in the same way as desire makes our hearts beat.

Patrick Bonté
Artistic and general direction