Clément Layes describes his work as kind of weird. The choreographer from Europe combines his circus training with comedy to ask philosophical questions, all while balancing a glass of water on his head.
Layes’ performance is like a game in which he plays with everyday objects and changes their meaning, he says. For example, balancing the glass on his head, Layes proposes that we actually make our lives very complicated in many situations when we don’t really need to.
Layes expresses these ideas through exaggerated motions while juggling the glass of water on his head.
“It’s more open, so it doesn’t say this in obvious ways, but it’s always implied, you always have some sort of association,” Layes says. “It’s never something that is stated, it’s always remains under the veil of a game.”
Layes will be one of four dancers at the National Arts Centre for a series called Face 2 Face. The series is something the NAC first tried last year. It gives people an opportunity to see a range of different artists, with their own takes on deeply personal solo performances, says Cathy Levy, executive producer at the NAC.
The series showcases a collection of artists Levy has met in her travels; a dancer from England, two from Germany as well as a French-Canadian artist, each with their own unique style. “Different generations, different approaches but for each of them, the result being a solo that is danced by someone very close to the material, if not the creator themselves,” Levy says.
Doing a series like this gives the NAC an opportunity to introduce people to smaller scale artists, in smaller settings, compared to some of the bigger performers it brings in, such as Swan Lake, from the National Ballet of Canada.
Another artist that will be performing in the series is Aakash Odedra, a young performer from England. For Odedra’s performances, he commissioned well known choreographers to create dances about him. Each performance is wildly different, yet all around the same theme of himself, says Odedra. One performance was inspired Odedra’s name, Aakash, which means sky. It deals with constellations.
“Looking up at the sky, you see the constellations of the stars but you look at them, they look very one dimensional or flat, but in actual fact there is so much depth to it,” Odedra says.
In Odedra’s performance he will explore dance with light, and will be surrounded by hanging light bulbs while he dances.
The artists will be performing at different times and locations at both the NAC and Arts Court until Feb. 8. The performance scheduling was made to give people opportunities to see a couple of performances each night throughout the week, or if ambitious, all of the performances at once.
The series brings a variety of different people together, sharing in an intimate space, says Odedra. “In a similar time span they can get exposed to people from different parts of the globe.”