After Babel

Documentary project

2021

Project description

In the documentary After Babel, choreographers Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and Damien Jalet, performer Francis Ducharme and artist Antony Gormley share their recollections and reflections on the creation of Babel. These testimonies reveal the inspirations at the heart of this ode to coexistence, addressing the major themes of communication, identity, borders, language and creation.

Duration : 20 minutes.
Produced by Filigrane Archives.

The art work at the heart of the documentary

Belgian choreographers Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and Damien Jalet have brought together 22 dancers from 15 different countries, each defending their culture, their nationality, and their spoken and physical language. On stage, singers and musicians take us on a journey of hybrid sounds. Created especially for the 2016 Avignon Festival and filmed in the Court of Honour of the Papal Palace, Babel 7.16 show is an update / recreation of Babel(words), the emblematic piece created by Cherkaoui and Jalet in 2010. Babel  borrows its title and its tone from the book of Genesis, which seeks to explain why people are scattered over the earth and why they speak different languages.

With the participation of

Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui choreographer
Damien Jalet choreographer
Francis Ducharme performer
Antony Gormley artist and set designer

FILIGRANE ARCHIVES production team

Direction Valérie Lessard
Video editing Gennaro De Pasquale
Coordination Justine Ricard
Communications Claudia Chan Tak

This documentary from Filigrane Archives was produced as part of the Webcast programming of the show Babel 7.16 from Sidi Larbi CherkaouI and Damien Jalet, a DIGIDANCE presentation.
DIGIDANCE is an initiative of Centre national des Arts (Ottawa), DanceHouse (Vancouver), Danse Danse (Montréal) and Harbourfront Centre (Toronto).
 

Still frames of After Babel © Filigrane Archives
Still photos © Justine Ricard
Photos of Babel 7.16 © Christophe Raynaud de Lage