Jan Fabre Teaching Group

Exercise: Adagio/flying

"Adagio is an exercise taken out of the repertoire of classical ballet which mostly incites slowness and grace…This exercise starts by choosing a dancer who can carry out this classical Adagio. He or she will start centrally at the front of the space so that the other performers can follow this model’s every move to the second. The most important point of concern is its rhythm: this Adagio is performed as slowly as possible which will demand even more control of the body and focus of the performers. This extremely slow shaping of the Adagio needs to be absorbed millimeter by millimeter by the performer. “Feel every millimeter,” the instructor says, “enjoy every millimeter, each millimeter counts, each millimeter is a happening, each millimeter is an arabesque, each millimeter is a Swan Lake." The body becomes a slow metronome, whose dial measures space-time, fully aware that it is endless." - Jan Fabre & Luk Van den Dries ( 'From Act to Acting: Jan Fabre’s Guidelines for the Performer of the 21st century')

In image performer: Conor Doherty
Photographer: Lieven Herreman