AUTRE

In the duet autre (other), the notion of distance dominates the development of the choreographic phrases. At first, distance separates the bodies. The evolution of the two people through space creates a confrontation of gestures stemming from the quick, light and aerial movements of the first and the slow, retained and grounded actions of the second. The different timings are superimposed, while the glances exchanged between the two people reduce the distance between them. The progressive attempt to bring these two bodies together dwarfs the distance, the languor of the instrumentalist's theme, and its resulting melodic lines. The musical environment gives way to harmonic stability and fragmentation of rapid images irremediably absorbed by the encounter. Here it is the intermediary that matters, the in-between, the distortion, the gap, the "semantic displacement" between one and the other.

Assonance IV is divided into four sections, characterised by an extended upbeat, a period of density and a fast elimination in the first two, and by an essay into the static, a quest for balance, the memory of the vestige of movement for the last two. Austerity and sobriety are allied in the composition—Sharp and low sounds alternate, stemming from instrumental gestures that seem visible to the listener. There is also a kind of limpid aerial suspension interrupted only by the lightning accelerations of the two instruments. The live sound appears to deteriorate, fossilise, and be caught in an echo that seems to rise as a trace of life.

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