For an artist like Luc Petton, trained in martial arts and at the Dance Theater Lab of Alwin Nikolais and Murray Louis in New York, dedicating a performance to Oskar Schlemmer and his Stick Dance (Stäbetanz, 1927) may seem a coherent development of a path of studies and influences on the conception of stage space. Schlemmer, we recall, founded his research on the transformation of space through forms, color, and light; his love for ballet permeated his entire life, and his exploration of the 'architectural costume' that determines movement in place of the dancer, conditioned to new expressive modalities, paved the way for twentieth-century abstract theater focused on the relationship of the 'mechanical and objective' body (the puppet) with space, of which Alvin Nikolais' abstract multimedia theater is an illustrious example. French choreographer Luc Petton, as mentioned above, was a student of Nikolais after his studies and competitive karate practice, developing a formal and aesthetic exploration rooted in his background. With "Oscar," created in France in 2002 for his company Icosaèdre co-directed with Marilén Iglesais-Breuker and based in Villesavoye, Petton pays homage to Schlemmer, rethinking his 1927 Stäbetanz with contemporary approaches. Where Schlemmer's Stick Dance featured a single dancer wearing a costume adorned with long rods that highlighted projections of different body parts in space, Petton and his costume designer Jean Paul Céalis 'dress and undress' six dancers with rods, sticks, long rigid and flexible poles. Applied to their costumes or directly on their bodies, held in hand or attached to joints, these objects create infinite forms in space. Every gesture, even the smallest and most imperceptible, weaves a complex connection with the surrounding air and defines new volumes. Extensions of the body or curious prosthetics that in total abstraction evoke creatures from the animal world, insects, snakes, butterflies, and peacocks, martial arts combats, gymnastic performances, helicopters, and geometric shapes evolving in the black space of the stage. Divided into scenes and in a continuous alternation of solos, duets, and choral parts, "Oscar" is a work that clings to the pure physicality of dance, exploring playful paths of body metamorphosis, without disregarding or omitting humor and self-irony.
