Les Fleurs du Mal (The Flowers of Evil), based on the poetry of Baudelaire and presented by Shakti & The Garage International, is a confession of hopes, dreams, failures and sins told through performative dance.
The Flowers of Evil attempts to extract beauty from the malignant. One must evoke the artificial and paradoxical aspects of life. Beauty can evolve on its own, irrespective of nature and fuelled by sin. The ideal transcends over the harsh reality where all senses are united in ecstasy.
The path of The Flowers of Evil is very similar to what is outlined in Hindu Philosophy and the dance shows the parallel nature of it.
Mandala – a microcosm representing divine powers at work in the universe. The Mandala represents the nature of experience and the intricacies of both the enlightened and confused mind. The dancers weave the web.
Karma is the concept of action. The dancers act to be bound to one another as one extreme ideal cannot exist without the malignant spleen.
Moksha is liberation. Or is it? Yet bound together they cannot part.
Maya is illusion, the veil which must be lifted. The battlefield of the mind and soul/spleen and ideal continue.
Kala is the ultimate time where good and evil cease to exist and all paradoxes unite.
Samsara is the continuous flow of birth, life, death and rebirth.
It is he who flows into himself to perpetually wander through harsh states of existence which the pain of the never-ending cycle is transformed into the lush blossoms of the “flowers of evil.”
The show premiered in Avignon Off Festival and then was performed in Seoul at the VIA International Festival. It was praised for its philosophical content and artistic presentation.
“Never have I seen the beauty in the evil so well expressed.” – La Provence
“Strange encounter of Baudelairian poetry, poetry with sacred dance, whether it be of Hindu or Buddhist inspiration. The dancers take us on a Karmic crossing in search for a ‘Beyond’,” said J. Bertrand of Revue Spectacle Avignon, France.
We are invited to the initiation. The dancers perfectly master the movements of the body.
The choreography draws its inspiration from both oriental traditions as well as in the and the expression of secular gestures, such as cabaret dances and striptease.
We remain fascinated by the beauty and precision of the gestures. The poetry of Baudelaire, spoken in Japanese, works magically without our understanding of the language.
The dance, music, through its rhythms, mark the meeting of the earthly and the celestial. It takes us into the regions of inner conflict where good and evil are opposed. The dancers, both angels and devils, invite us to the ball. It is up to us to dance.
For more information, including where to purchase tickets, please visit the Fringetix website.
WHERE: The Garage International @ Adelaide Town Hall. 128 King William St, Adelaide SA 5000
Entry via Pirie St or Flinders St Laneways UN, Adelaide, Kaurna Country.
WHEN: Thu 23 Feb – Fri 24 Feb: 6pm; Sat 25 Feb: 5:40pm
PRICE: Full price tickets – $35 per person (additional conditions apply)
More News
