Numéro, 2002
Numéro is a duo created and performed by the visual artist Nicolas Floc’h and the choreographer Emmanuelle Huynh.
In 2001, Emmanuelle Huynh commissioned Nicolas Floc’h to create a modular structure for Bord, tentative pour corps, textes et tables. In Numéro, the two artists decided to examine directly their ways of thinking about space, trajectory and mass in a plastic dramaturgical structure in which the lighting is also an important protagonist. Numérois conceived as a sort of magic trick using re-purposed, threatening objects, fishing souvenirs from Japan, a shadow shape, unnerving flying light instruments and a little bit of science fiction. There is also a strange insect, a cardboard box which comes to life, a woman in spike heels and odd manga eyeglasses -- and even giant Mikado sticks.
Press clips :
The duo Numéro, presented by Emmanuelle Huynh and the plastician Nicolas Floc’h at the Théâtre du Hangar, begins in complete blackout. Suddenly a fluorescent green dart slams into the wall surrounding the stage area. A dozen others follow it. A garland of lights allows us to glimpse a dark mass of some kind. Light! There is a cardboard box with someone inside it, to be used in one of those nifty magic tricks, the Woman in the Cabinet Sliced with Swords, only in this case they don’t use swords, they use telescoping fishing rods! Emmanuelle Huynh found these marvelous items in Japan and brought them back with her, along with the Japanese concept of displaced beauty, attached to everyday objects and incongruous situations. This Numéro is indeed plastic, simple and poetic in its associations of ideas, a suite of abstract and suggestive tableaux ranging from cardboard insects to a woman transformed into a giant mikado game.
Rosita Boisseau Le Monde, June 29, 2004
(…) Emmanuelle Huynh performed her Numéro at the Théâtre du Hangar, a powerful piece in the form of a duo, with the choreographer and the visual artist Nicolas Floc’h. This multi-tracked creation is quite strange, first threatening this spectator, who, sitting in the dark, found herself surrounded by luminous arrows being shot off under her nose at point blank range, thunk-ing into cardboard targets, a shocking introduction in a high-stakes atmosphere. With the help of other elements, not much to look at – a man sitting in a cardboard box in the middle of the stage – the choreographer installs, uninstalls, constantly changes things around, using some rather sadistic props, whips with hard handles with which they slash the box where the so-called homeless guy is sitting. The shapeless shelter has two antenna-like whips poking out of it, resembling an insect or a bull with pointy horns, with Emmanuelle Huynh as its matador, of course. There is an air of sacrifice. And at the end of the piece she even starts a game of mikado, her torso serving as support for the giant wooden sticks from which she must disentangle herself.
Muriel Steinmetz L’Humanité, June 29, 2004
Emmanuelle Huynh, the new director of the Centre national de danse contemporaine in Angers, knows a thing or two about cold fury. Presented at the beginning of the Montpellier Danse, Numéro, a piece she created with the plastician Nicolas Floc’h, plays some deft magic tricks, with some knife-throwing and a variation on the Sword Cabinet trick. Perhaps she’s tricked out as the new Bond girl or – more likely – a manga warrior, she’s brought all the right gear, including telescoping fishing rods, spike heels and a shiny black latex catsuit. So the killing – as she has certain torero movements, including a death blow – may begin.(…) The arrows fly into six panels. It looks dangerous, but Huynh and Floc’h are both master simulators and strategists. Once embedded, the arrow points change into fireflies and glow-worms. Soon they end up surrounding the beautiful spy lady until she moves the long sticks holding her prisoner, thus turning the spider’s web into a game of mikado. Numéro is full of devastating humour, supported by an uncompromising ethic and aesthetic: both whore and submissive, a bitch off the leash. (…)
Marie-Christine Vernay Libération, June 29, 2004
The good Number
In her new piece, conceived and performed with the plastician Nicolas Floc’h, Emmanuelle Huynh shows an appreciable restraint in her intentions. From time spent in Japan, the two artists have retained the omnipresent packing cartons as well as some peculiar telescoping fishing rods, incredibly long, thin and flexible. They combine the two elements in their mysterious piece, Numéro (that’s the title of the piece). Onstage, the plastician moves, hidden inside a pile of boxes which the choregrapher skewers with arrows, with an elegant, chilly grace. Later the piece turns into a giant game of distinguished, futuristic mikado. Numéro is a sort of moving geography in a space which is both restrained and exploded, crossing with a fine exactness the thoughts and practices of the plastic and choreographic arts.
Gérard Mayen Danser, septembre 2004
Distribution / Crédits
Conception and Performance Emmanuelle Huynh et Nicolas Floc’h
Lights Yannick Fouassier
Duration : 50 minutes
Production Compagnie Múa and Centre chorégraphique national de Montpellier Languedoc-Roussillon.
Performance created at La Ménagerie de Verre - Paris, in 2002.
Presse