“Unison is a strange way to organise ourselves as human beings”, Yaïr Barelli says. It is interesting to ask ourselves why we sometimes act in unison, to examine the psychology and motivations behind a practice that, paradoxically, takes many forms. While the word unison comes from music, where it describes the same sound played at the same time, it entered the world of dance through the corps de ballet. Movement in unison is a protean rite, that manifests in various ways: in stadiums, protests, religious assemblies and of course, military parades. Yaïr Barelli adds nursery rhymes and collective naps to this list! He has created a work where seven dancers explore these diverse phenomena of group belonging, pushing them to their logical extreme. He reminds us that behind the beauty of unison, lurks the danger of standardization.

Thomas Hahn