In 2010, the tryptic Faith, Myth, Babel (words) marked the beginning a long collaboration between La Villette and Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui. Almost exactly a decade later, presenting 4D comes as an evidence. The play reunites four emblematic duos from the choreographer’s work. Each of these tussles, first conceived in another context, has become a piece in and of itself, accompanied by live music.

Matter reveals and interlocks our most deeply-rooted clichés on East and West. The bodies metamorphose into inanimate and identifiable objects claiming to alleviate our contemporary solitudes. Pure follows, exploring the fantasy of purity. Wouldn’t making a body pure mean running the risk of making it disappear? Doesn’t absolute purity imply that there is nothing left? Can body language account for such a disappearance?

In Sin, co-created with Damien Jalet, imbricated animal, serpentine, and spidery gestures generate or vampirize vital energies. Eros and Thanatos, the instincts of life and death, clash in the unfathomable intimacy of the couple. Faun finally takes these mythical rivalries over. Fauna and nymph entangle to create a unique entity, hybrid, feminine and masculine, organically linked to the universe.

And we slowly slip into another dimension, that of the projected image: Valtari’s duo, film choreographed by Sidi larbi Cherkaoui for the Icelandic rock band Sigur Rós, wraps up the evening, leaving us in suspension, between air and flesh.