In the manner of a fugue, Maguy Marin orchestrates the defied. Intoxicating and hypnotic lightning-fast scenes.

Ten years after its creation and reception, Umwelt, the immense masterpiece from Maguy Marin, remains an impactful experience – and for some, disconcerting. The short action takes place at the bottom of the stage in a corridor formed between mirrored plates that create thundering sounds and noises. Through cracks, we perceive a fugue of rapid juxtaposed scenes. Appearing and disappearing in a flash, the situations are vivid, the lighting is sumptuous, and the costumes are lavish. Mundane, everyday things but also the wondrous richness of lives and cultures parade through, intoxicating, hypnotic, renouncing all hierarchies of story and place. Masterful, dizzying, with a confrontation that exhausts possibilities, when the spectacle of the world is at pains to make sense.

Gérard Mayen