MARCO BERRETINI-COMPAGNIE *MELK PROD. / 2003 Choreographer, born in Germany in 1963. Lives in Geneva. The choreographer’s residence at the Laboratoires d’Aubervilliers wasdevoted to the production of a new piece, Are Friends Electric?, for which he gathered seven performers from his company, *Melk Prod. The show transforms dance into theater, music hall or happening, using a provocative and burlesque tone. The artist also took advantage of this residence to give some members of the company the opportunity to explore, produce and present a piece. New movements for old bodies is the generic title given to the event presented at the Laboratoires during fall 2004; it includes Marco Berrettini’s show, a solo by Chiara Gallerani, a film by Gianfranco Poddighe, as well as a musical performance by Manuel Coursin and Michel Guillet. New movements for old bodies was presented at the Caserne (Basel) in December 2003, at the Festival Faits d’Hiver (Théâtre du Lierre, Paris) in January 2004, at the Rottefabrik (Zurich) in February 2004 and at the Arsenic (Lausanne) in January 2005.   About  New Movement for Old Bodies de Marco Berrettini. «New movements for old bodies is a collective work to which each performer brings his share of creativity, in function of the improvisation subjects and texts proposed by Berrettini: a community at work, where the creative process leads to the editing of sequences and sound by the choreographer. The discontinuity of sequences arises from a process of condensation or shifts of meaning, a senseless succession of moving images, and an audiovisual volume with a rhythm reminiscent of a zapping session. Images of dance using the movie and television screen as their frame of references; the specular lining of theatrical space no longer appears as a mere mirror surface, but as a screen. The spectator’s capacity to look is at stake in New movements for old bodies, through a dance playing with the boundaries between reality and fiction, between feigned improvisation and methodical awkwardness. Space is split by the successive appearances of the characters and their simultaneous actions. The rigour of the performance is based on the manipulation of fragment, the succession of solos and ensemble dancing, sentences that roll up or escape by logical absurdity, the expressive value of the music modulating the atmospheres, while the rhythm of each action is punctuated by tones. The music generates space and action; the sound track is made up of instrumentals, songs, sound signals, recorded voices: all this contributes to making the stage the place of temporal variations and spatial tensions. The movements of bodies turning around faster and faster, bodies spinning on themselves and under another one in order to move it, body manipulations, fallen bodies, a body consuming itself. It is this staging of privileged moments, in which the burlesque aspect is brief, sudden, and which disorders all narrative continuity, challenging all logic, all moral and all form of gravity, turning the dancer into a metaphysical acrobat on a cabaret stage.” Extract of « De qui est la chorégraphie », by Michaël Thalmann in Le Journal des Laboratoires, #2, June 2004. Extract of « De qui est la chorégraphie », by Michaël Thalmann in Le Journal des Laboratoires, #2, June 2004.