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IMPRESSIONS: (LA)HORDE, Rone and Ballet National de Marseille Present "Room with a View" at NYU Skirball
By Nicole Leung
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Published on November 27, 2023
"Room With A View." Photo: Thomas Amouroux
Part of The Dance Reflections Festival, sponsored by Van Cleef & Arpels
Artistic Concept: Rone and (LA)HORDE
Music: Rone
Direction and Choreography: (LA)HORDE – Marine Brutti, Jonathan Debrouwer and Arthur Harel with the dancers of Ballet National de Marseille
Artistic Assistant: Julien Ticot // Lighting: Eric Wurtz // Light design Assistant: Juan Gaspard
Sound Engineer: Vincent Philippart // Sound production Assistant: César Urbina
Costume Stylist: Salomé Poloudenny // Costume Assistant: Nicole Murru, Nadine Galifi
Hair direction: Charlie le Mindu // Physical Preparation: Waskar Coello Chavez
Rehearsal Coach: Valentina Pace // Stage Director: Rémi D’apolito // Stage management: Julien Parra, Alexis Rostain, Matthias Volerin // Stage design: Julien Peissel
Dates: October 20 - 21, 2023
Room with a View is one of eleven evening-length programs presented in New York’s first edition of Dance Reflections, a festival sponsored by Van Cleef & Arpels. Performed by the Ballet National de Marseille, Room is a collaboration between electronic music producer Rone and choreographic power-trio (LA)HORDE; Marine Brutti, Jonathan Debrouwer, and Arthur Harel. Together the co-directors and artists-in-residence lead the Ballet National de Marseille, a creative melting pot that’s home to 25 dancers from 16 countries. Their vision for desegregated and self-professed “post-internet dances” informs all their work, especially Room, which refuses to fit neatly into one box, label, or style.
Before audiences enter the theater at NYU Skirball, we hear the thumpa-thumpa of Rone’s music performed live. Walking through the doors, we see him laying down the beat at the helm of a massive concrete structure. At its center is a room carved out of rock where a woman wearing baggy pants and a grungy crop top steps in place to the driving pulse. A dedicated disciple, she faces Rone, chewing and swallowing the music with every muscle in her body. He stands on a podium, back turned to us, bopping to his own tunes. I feel the bass boom in my chest as I take my seat. Strobes flicker like lightning. We’re flies on the wall of an underground rave. Captivated, we listen to the DJ deliver his techno-trance sermon.
Other dancers enter and exit the space in pairs. Leveraging the jagged slabs of rocks like a jungle gym, they create satisfying moments of suspension and counterbalance that move so slowly, they appear nearly endless. Costumes designed by Salomé Poloudenny reflect the renegade ethos of (LA)HORDE with an off-kilter coolness dissociated from time. Belonging to neither past, present, or future, each outfit is as distinctly individual as the cast.
Picking up the pace, they thrash, scream, and whip their heads in exaltation, forming a mosh pit around Rone. As the music trails off to an atmospheric whirr, Rone floats his arms up preparing for liftoff. The pack of dancers close in around him, pick him up, and fly him away. Like a Christ-figure he ascends, only to reappear on the sidelines of the scene. Sitting on a ledge outside the concrete den, he takes a break, oblivious to the dancers who tease and taunt each other back inside. As if they were strangers, they lock eyes across the dance floor and tentatively approach or back away in fear. A seemingly playful chase reveals more insidious intentions when a kiss morphs into a chokehold. Meanwhile, a deadly struggle ends in hot, passionate sex. The line between consensual and nonconsensual is chillingly unclear.
Although the pretend assaults are disturbing, I can appreciate the beauty and craft of their movements beyond mere pantomime. Utilizing momentum, skillful grips, and seamless transitions, these duets suggest violence without being literal. One dancer with a particularly delicate frame stomps on her attacker with such virility that the concrete structure collapses, sending a cascade of rubble from the ceiling in a viscerally felt exclamation point. As the dust settles, four dancers remain with fists held up to the sky, for justice. Deafening silence lingers in the air as a hazmat-laden crew clears the stage of debris and desolation.
In answer to this call to action, the second half of Room unfolds in a cathartic explosion of music and movement. Free from the oppressive confines of the club, everyone returns to the stage overflowing with teenage angst. Rone descends from the concrete ruins and grounds himself in a booth on stage right, creating a soundscape that feels both otherworldly and sentimental. The dancers run, jump, slide, swing, and catapult around him in an adrenaline-filled frenzy. They stick out their tongues and flip us off a couple hundred times, expressing pent up rage and rebellion.
With limbs like rubber bands, they slingshot each other several meters in the air. I’m especially drawn to dancer Sarah Abicht as she’s swung around the stage like an Olympic discus, generating wind that blows back hair and fabric as she’s passed from partner to partner. Holding on with one arm and reaching out with the other, she effortlessly do-si-dos across the stage in sweeping figure eights.
Elena Valls Garcia’s cat-like agility impresses, but what moves me most is her fearless, childlike invincibility as she flies in and out of the floor. One by one, dancers climb to stand in brief suspension on a set of shoulders before falling into a sea of their peers. Immense trust is required of both the individual and the group to perform such superhuman feats of abandon. Even a slight hesitation could cause a broken limb or concussion as they throw literal caution to the wind. Here, it’s not the choreography that inspires, it’s witnessing the dancers’ authentic and varied emotions as they embrace physical challenge and risk. Though they laugh and flash devilish smiles, they’re not kidding around.
The last few minutes of Room fly by in a whirlwind of profound absurdity. I burst out laughing when one unsuspecting dancer licks a theremin antenna like a popsicle—emitting a shrill crescendo in perfect harmony with the music. Everything is unhinged but deeply relatable, igniting some forgotten part of me that’s been lost to adulthood and professionalism… the part of me that craves freedom from the conventions, expectations, and the anxieties that plague our world.
In one final push of sheer adrenaline and willpower, the group clumps together like drill soldiers, moving as one. Pulsing and “jacking” like House dancers, they struggle to keep pace with the ultra-fast tempo of the music. (I worry they might pass out or throw up!) Some stop to catch their breath before resubmerging in the group. Hoots and howls escape between haggard breaths. They egg each other on. Sweat rolls off their skin like rainwater. Although they’ve reached their physical limit, their steely eyes and exulted smiles hold a preternatural power that says, “Wanna bet?”
As the music fades into a recurring melody, both hopeful and sad, I feel the bittersweet comedown of a journey ending. The dancers hum along to the wistful tune and for a moment it seems the audience joins too. Our chorus fills the theater, dissolving the proverbial fourth wall of this “room with a view”. From my vantage point, I see the stark concrete space with fresh eyes—a gray area, molded by young fear, defiance, hope, and ripe with possibility. With wise naivety, the dancers stare back at us, daring us to revisit and explore the buried terrain.
