Compagny Abis & Julien Carlier Will Bring GOLEM to Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2024

GOLEM is an artistic dialogue between dancer and choreographer Julien Carlier and 75-year-old sculptor Mike Sprogis. Through their different disciplines and ages, GOLEM is constructed as a distorting mirror of their life paths. One interprets dance as an ephemeral sculpture in motion, the other sees the sculptor's gestures as a source of dance. On stage, the manipulated clay blurs the boundary between the inert and the living. An organic, sensitive and beautiful piece that speaks to us about the passage of time, our repeated gestures and their impact on body and mind. GOLEM is programmed by Dance Base in collaboration with Assembly, supported by Wallonie Theatre Dance Brussels.

 

The performance is a comment on the passage of time, with the duet between the younger dancer and older sculptor providing a space for meditation, reflection, and contemplation within its minimalist set. Carlier's dance represents the ephemerality of time, whereas Sprogis' sculpture represents its permanence. Both use each other as inspiration becoming a symbiosis of decay and growth, blurring the boundary between real and unreal, birth and death. 

 

Carlier, a hip-hop and contemporary choreographer, met Sprogis, a Canadian sculptor with no experience in professional theatre or dance, six years ago, the moment from which GOLEM blossomed. The performance comments on the similarities between their two crafts – Carlier's breakdancing metaphorically disassembles the body and puts it back together, while Sprogis does the same with the malleable yet tangible clay he works with. Eventually, a magical moment melts their two mediums together, as Sprogis becomes a dancer and Carlier becomes the clay the sculptor works with as they begin to move together. 

 

GOLEM is accompanied by a voiceover, narrating the sculptor's life story from his way of living, his passion for sculpture, and how this passion has affected his body as the performance unfolds in front of the audience. Dance, documentary, and sculpture all come together in this contemporary, experimental, multidisciplinary performance – tickets are on sale now from Assembly and Edinburgh Festival Fringe box offices and online.    

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