What is the MOONWALK PROJECT?
The Moonwalk Project is an itinerant dance laboratory in nature aimed at exploring the meeting between body and landscape. It is a project aimed at building bridges and artistic collaborations in new creative ways. It is an immersive creative process by foot in nature, a poetic journey and a dancing quest. It is beyond-borders, involving artists from different countries and backgrounds researching together on how body and landscape can possibly meet.
It is an epic journey between holy and wild, from mountain torrents to the sea, from summits to the edge of deep blue horizon, going through forests and small villages. Dance, cultural/ natural heritage and new social constructions will become the three main actors.
Through the past three editions of the project, we have realized that when we connect with our environment and the landscapes we go through , they continue to travel inside us even long after we have left it. Thus the landscapes travel in us as much as we travel across them. It is because of this reciprocity that we also become aware of an inclusive ecology (where nature is not something external) and of what we take and offer when we come across different landscapes. We aim at transforming the artistic gesture (accessible to all) into an essential tool in this relation to nature.
Through the workshops and activities proposed during each edition, we aim at opening perceptions to everything around us and to the living interaction with one's own body. The body as a cartography of the landscapes we pass through. The individual, the group, as active agents in this research.
THE WALK
Taking one's time is an act of subversion in a society which highlights and idolize speed. Walking is an act of resistance. Celebrating slowness, availability, silence, curiosity, and uselessness, values that are opposed to the neo-liberal sensibilities that condition our lives. The walker is the one who takes his time and does not let time take him. September 2016 witnessed the first edition of the Moonwalk. 15 artists from 10 different countries and a variety of backgrounds gathered during one moon cycle to walk and explore dance together from Pyrenean Mountains to the Mediterranean Sea. We walked from Sept. 8th till October the 2nd. Then we headed towards the Living Arts Base monastery (http://www.living-arts-base.org). During this phase we gathered what emerged from the walk, we danced with the resonances and started creating different pieces and artwork related to it.
In 2017 we stayed in the Pyrenees, under the neverding rain, this time heading towards the Atlantic, from Lourdes to St Jean Pied de Port, crossing the Béarn and the Basque Country. During this edition we had the chance to have Jordi Arque in our team. He did an amazing film which is available on this link: click here
We also had the chance to collaborate with renown Basque musician Mixel Etxekopar and perform with him on the gorges of the Kakuetta.
in 2019 we were a small group, 6 people, travelling on a very intimate journey through the Pyrenees of Ariège.
Please visit our section "ARCHIVES" displayed on the main page to have an overview of the photos and participants of each edition.
The rhythm of the walk takes us back to other times, of the first men reaching out to the unknown, of pilgrimages ever since and to journeys of the present time. An intimate dialogue is possible and revealed within the traversed environment. The desire to go forward roots in patience. It unveils our relation to the world and through dance, either subtle or explosive, we can communicate with all things. Moonwalk is meant to become a danced reflection on the world and its natural, human-built, symbolic, energetic, psychological or legal borders.
This venture is the opportunity to question through the body, our way of perceiving, of relating to the earth, to nature, to human constructions, to the group. To extract the creating act, the transforming act. To nourish the dance through an immersive journey and invent new pathways of inhabiting the world. To dive into the unknown and the subconscious. Studying, creating and developing from the group dynamic is an important aspect of this project. As a collective, we are together for more than one month interacting and co-habiting using verbal and non verbal communication. Our aim is to find an ecology that allows more harmonious ways between the individual and the group. We offer our dance to the landscapes we walk through and to the encounters; dancing in remote villages, mountain shelters, unusual and unique situations. We offer workshops and create performances along the way. Moonwalk will not end here. Our aim is to re-edit the project every year in a different part of the world, go into different contexts and develop further into the fields of research opened up by the first experiences.
Now it is time, more than ever, to take dance everywhere!!!!
