Trapped in the task of having to create a performance on Meister Eckhart, he realizes the complexity of the operation when the assignment has already been accepted. The research of the inner self, according to XIV-century Dominican mystic Meister Eckhart, must be pursued through the dissolution of the ego, searching the interior solitude, by detaching oneself from will, memory, the senses and judgement.
Initially adopting an intellectual and analytical approach, Marco Chenevier recalls the fundamentals of Eckhart's mysticism, making numerous attempts to translate at least one of them into a dance performance. But, as these attempts are progressively self-censored, the analysis gets lost in the empty research of a dramaturgical idea, that seems to constantly fail. The unrest and the considerations are then shared with the audience, lightly and playfully, in a partial rift of the code.
The fruitless reasoning brings him to finally wonder whether the error lied in the process itself. The keystone could be to pose a question about the meaning of creating a work on Meister Eckhart today, and whether the accusation of heresy levelled at him seven centuries ago could evidence an ancient conflict between power and spirituality.
Andrea Porcheddu – Gli stati generali – 28/05/2017
“[...] Chenevier is a smart and sly flaneur, with an international flavour, who travels through different worlds with flavourful empathy and intelligence. [...] the dancer is exceptional at keeping the attention alive, opening to always different emotional and conceptual plans. The show becomes soon a bitter statement about human condition, a tangible and relevant fact-checking of the heretical visions of the medieval mystic: it is a self-reflection, giving suggestions and scopes that are ample, captivating, at times dramatic. Marco Chenevier, with his solitary stance on stage, breaks the mechanism of the show, he unveils the abyss that's behind the game. And we – dreary, boring, tiring as we are – we find ourselves suspended into the void of life, amused and laughing.”
Silvia Guidi – L'Osservatore Romano – 27/05/2017
“[...] Marco Chenevier plays a continuous, self-ironic off-air performance, he shares with the audience doubts and uncertainties about method and matter, he plays impressions of himself falling prey to anxiety during rehearsals, when nothing seems to be working. [...] Chenevier deconstructs and reconstructs, he cuts and reassembles, he shows with displayed humility the draft of the text, full of second thoughts and corrections, torn out pages and highlighted excerpts, knight in a not-so-shiny armour of contemporary theatre. But all of a sudden, when we let out guard down, he throws a series af Eckhartian pearls of rare beauty, a sequence of powerful and accurate shots, with energy and grace [...] The audience is knocked out by surprise – but perfectly able to clap (for a long time) – while the radically, outrageously outdated words of the German mystic are still floating in the air.”
Giulia Sanzone – Repubblica Roma – 26/05/2017
“While constantly attempting to embrace something pure and continually shifiting, Chenevier treads a deep and complex path with a delicate touch, leading us, barefoot, to the border between dance and theatre.”
