Compagnie 111/Aurélien Bory with Kaori Ito: Plexus, Sadler's Wells

This is not the first time that director and scenographer Aurélien Bory explores the physical history of a dancer - Plexus follows a similar experiment with the flamenco dancer Stéphanie Fuster. The subject this time is the celebrated Japanese dancer and choreographer, Kaori Ito, bringing a new edge to mime in London, and sure to be one of the most intriguing shows London 2015 has to offer.
Bory, who is artistic director of the French Compagnie 111, is behind the concept and direction of the piece, but the movement is Ito’s own. From within a cage-like cube of five thousand hanging threads, she stretches and flies, in a sequence of seemingly impossible movements.
Bory explained in an interview this is not about Ito’s anatomy, but nor is it really about her personality. Rather he hoped that, by asking Ito to respond to this limited, reactive space, she would access the muscle memories, the physical habits and reflexes that her wide dance experience have left on her body.
In a space in which every breath stirs the hanging threads, this is an exercise in containment.
Ito trained in Japan and then New York, but much of her professional career has been in Europe, France in particular. She has danced with many of the most innovative choreographers, including Philippe Découfflé, Angelin Preljocaj, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and Alain Platel’s ballets C de la B among other top European dance-theatre names.

Plexus opens with the recorded beat of Ito’s own heart, but the rest of the music composition is by Joan Cambon, under lighting by Bory’s regular collaborator Arno Veyrat. Design is by Pierre Gosselin.
The intensity of Bory’s project, achieved with the sinewy, precise movements of Kaori Ito, will leave you wide-eyed and marvelling, opening the year with some of the best dance in London 2015.

For more on the London International Mime Festival 2015, click here.