For some people, working with an ex would be a nightmare. But for choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, it’s something he always looks forward to. Next month, Cherkaoui reunites with former partner Damien Jalet to perform D’Avant, an unusual combination of contemporary dance theatre and music from the middle ages that has led to its cast being called “a medieval boyband”. Cherkaoui has a mighty back catalogue, but this work holds a special place in his heart.
The piece has toured the world, but the performances at London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall will be the UK’s first, even though the seeds of the collaboration – which features Luc Dunberry and Juan Kruz Díaz de Garaio Esnaola as its other dancing couple – were planted at this very venue. In 2001, Esnaola saw Cherkaoui and Jalet perform and immediately realised they were the people to bring an idea of his to life. D’Avant’s combination of forms is somewhat niche – and for the two couples, discovering a mutual passion for early music and experimental dance was a gift. They had found their artistic soulmates.
They spent three months in the studio making the piece. “It was like ping-pong,” says Esnaola. “One would propose an idea. It would immediately be taken forward by someone else; that would provoke a reaction, all at high speed. It was exhilarating. There was no friction, no fighting. As soon as there was a conflict, we would find a solution. We were brought to places none of us would have reached individually. It was a chain reaction.”
The resulting work, with its songs from the seventh to 12th centuries, uses the theatrical here and now to address ideas of transformation, destruction and belief. Or, as Jalet puts it: “This piece is about the fragility of alchemy. It’s so difficult to find harmony – and it’s easy to break.”
Harmony they certainly found but, over the years, their careers have gone in separate directions: Dunberry and Esnaola are part of Sasha Waltz’s company in Berlin, but also create their own projects; Jalet makes work for theatre as well as music videos for the likes of Florence and the Machine. Cherkaoui, the best known among them, soon takes over as director of Royal Ballet Flanders.
Despite this, for the past 13 years they’ve made a point of getting together every year or so, shifting schedules to cram in a performance. When Cherkaoui and Jalet split up, though, the dynamic inevitably changed. “There was definitely a question mark when suddenly we were not a couple,” says Jalet. “Would we continue to perform this? There was a moment of transition – it was tough because, with each performance, you go back to where you were in your life when you were creating it. But for Larbi and I, work had been such an important part in our relationship. We felt it was beautiful to preserve that. Now we’re very, very good friends.”
Now in their 30s, they talk about the pleasures of reuniting. “We fall back on specific patterns,” says Cherkaoui. “It’s like time didn’t pass – which is ironic because the piece is called D’Avant, From Before, and we keep going back to this place.”
Although Cherkaoui admits to occasionally wondering about their artistic choices (“It’s like putting on clothes from 13 years ago – sometimes you think, ‘What were we thinking?’”) they always re-create the work faithfully and plan to do so for as long as they physically can, even though it’s a gruelling piece, with bodies twisting and climbing, sliding and falling. At one point, Jalet becomes a human football being kicked around in the dust – the stage is built to look like a building site – while they sing austere and haunting plainsong. “Sometimes I worry – can I still do this?” says Cherkaoui, who still has the scar from splitting his chin open on one of the first runs. “But I will always be the doubter.”
Jalet understands. “I’m surprised he still wants to do it,” he says. “He always found it hell.”
• D’Avant is at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank Centre, London, 6-7 May. Box office: 0844 875 0073.
