KVT – stunning and breathtaking

On Saturday night Fabrice Lambert turned the Youth Theatre into a fabulous studio.

First he used his body, light and sound to create a landscape of memory and dreams on a large rectangle of white fabric spread on the floor. It was contemporary yet at the same time as evocative as a canvas by Caravaggio. The finished piece – turned, twisted, rippled and shot with golden light – was stunning. The second piece, Gravite, was quietly breathtaking. The artist (dancer, performer, magician-all and more are applicable) became two then three shadows and reflections of himself as his body moved in a large, shallow tray of water (that at first I thought was a shiny, black lacquered floor), in front of a grey screen that became a meditative body of water that rippled and gently surged as his body moved in it or touched it. It was an installation, a dance, a piece of video art, a sculpture in light, an illusion…. extraordinaire. At times the reflection on the screen became a levitating, almost disembodied, mystical figure.

This was an important exhibition by a very respected and brilliant dancer and choreographer that needed to be seen by our best Vietnamese aspiring dancers and artists, and most definitely anyone who considers themselves installation, performance or video artists. I hope that the performer and his team were able to conduct master classes in their disciplines.

I would love to see more of Lambert’s abstract sculptural choreography, more of his pictoral paintings in motion.

It’s not often you leave a performance or gallery with your mind so calmly reflective.

I think I was reminded of Le Petit Prince who said that grown ups so rarely ask you what does your new friend’s voice sound like, what games does he love best, does he collect butterflies? Grown ups, explains the Prince, love figures. They want to know how many brothers he has, how much does he weigh, how much money does his father make. Only through figures do they think they have learned anything about him. Fabrice Lambert brought the little Prince’s philosophy to brilliant life and made my evening, and today as well, a trove of butterflies and tapestried moths.

And it’s thanks to L’Espace and their devotion to Le Petite Prince’s little book of thoughts that we get to see such beautiful stuff without having to care at all too much about the numbers….25 000 and 50 000 if you really want to be a grown up!