Kafka Paradise
What balance exists between our need for others and the pursuit of freedom? Through partner and group work, four performers explore the poetic possibilities of breakdance, incorporating softness and fluidity.
At first, relationships of mutual aid take shape, but they gradually become more alienating. We have created a kind of "Blob" that rolls and engulfs bodies. In a Kafkaesque metamorphosis, the group shifts between symbiosis, a crab bucket, and a mechanism from which a new entity emerges, ruling over its parts like a strict regent.
A 40-minute version with mediation, as well as a shorter version, are available.
Credits
Co-creation of choreography and performance: Bérénice “B-Nice” Dupuis and David “Laos” Phiphak / Compagnie Circul’R
Performance: Joe Danny Aurélien, Charles Gao
Assistant Choreographer: Joe Danny Aurélien
Rehearsal direction and external artistic insight: Geneviève Gagné, Helen Simard, Victoria Mackenzie, Sovann Rochon-Prom Tep
Lighting design and stage management: Tiffanie Boffa
Costume design: Cassandre Brillant
Music composition and sound mixing: Samuel “Sungprod” Nadai
Long-term Artistic Approach
The choreographic project Kafka Paradise is a quartet bringing together breakdance figures on stage: Jo Danny “Dingo” Aurélien, David “Laos” Phiphak, Bérénice “B-Nice” Dupuis, and Charles “Mercenary” Gao. It explores a central premise: What if the collective transformed into a multi-limbed monster? A kind of Leviathan?
This quartet navigates through increasingly oppressive formations, notably featuring an indistinct rolling mass of bodies. This sphere, at times a totem, at times a centipede, feeds on individuals without their awareness in order to exist—manipulating its different parts while ensuring they do not rebel, giving them the illusion of freedom and choice to prevent an internal uprising. This absurd sphere also takes the form of an aggregate, a crab bucket, or ridiculous challenges.
We use breakdance techniques, a competitive dance, to move not only on the ground but also on each other. Our partner work is based primarily on improvisational systems, revealing moments of physical support as well as inevitable friction within this uncomfortable body-mass formation. As the sphere transforms into a machine, perfecting its internal organization through a “cunning of reason,” each performer becomes nothing more than a dehumanized cog in the mechanism.
With academic backgrounds in philosophy and sociology, we see dance as a space for questioning individualism, postmodern alienation, and the loss of bearings that characterize civilization’s relentless march toward greater rationality, efficiency, and organization. This shifting mass of bodies, which itself becomes an individual, reflects the paradox between our need for others and the modern individual’s disorientation—believing they are self-sufficient, yet deeply reliant on connection. After all, how much do we need others?
What the Media Are Saying
From my seat, “surprise!” in the front row, as soon as the lights go completely dark, I first see a single body emerging from the shadows. Gradually, three more join, their movements forming an ensemble where I see expressions of “finding one’s place,” “taking one’s place,” and even “keeping one’s place.” All closely tied to the creators’ intent, as stated in the evening’s program: “What balance exists between our need for others and the pursuit of freedom?” (…) But what fascinates me most throughout the performance is undoubtedly the skill—no, rather the virtuosity—of the performers’ movements. This group frequently becomes a ‘magma’ in which the ‘I’ merges into the ‘we,’ without losing individual identity, all infused with a wonderful touch of humor, right down to the final bows. What a beautiful experience!
