Abstract
This chapter identifies the key choreographic themes introduced in Rien de Rien and developed by Cherkaoui in later works: gestures, storytelling, circular movements, manipulation, objectification, contortionism and inversion all work towards eliciting affect from spectators. Many dramaturgical strategies developed in Cherkaoui’s later work are introduced in this work. Its postcolonial and ‘Other’ subjectivities, its orally transmitted songs and stories, its heteroglossia and religious iconography point towards Cherkaoui’s complex mise-en-scène characterised by simultaneity. The chapter explores the connection between the dramaturgical complexity of Rien de Rien and the political complexity of the Belgian state, which may have influenced Cherkaoui in embracing complexity as a deliberate dramaturgical strategy in his choreographic work.
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Rien de Rien. Choreographed by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui. 2000. Video Recording of Performance.
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Uytterhoeven, L. (2019). Rien de Rien—Dramaturgy Inviting an Engaged Spectatorship. In: Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui. New World Choreographies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27816-8_2
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