Bitef

Art is not a puzzle for which the key is hidden somewhere, nor is philosophy a means of resolving this puzzle. Bruno Schulz Letter to Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz JOSEF NADJ Josef Nadj was born in Kanjiža, in Vojvodina, a region of Serbia and Montenegro. He attended art school and the University of Budapest where he almost accidentally began to take theatre classes, without abandoning his training in martial arts. On the advice of his drama teacher, he left Budapest for Paris where he arrived in 1980. Thinking he had come there to do theatre, he discovered dance and rapidly came to share the different choreographic worlds of Mark Tompkins, Catherine Diverres and Franpois Verret, In 1986. he founded his company. In 1987, he choreographed Canard Pekinois (Peking Duck), inspired from souvenirs of his home town. This first piece underlined the duality of an approach mixing theater and dance. It became his calling card in preparing the ground for an internationally recognized oeuvre. In 1988. followed 7 peaux de Rhinoceros (7 Rhinoceros Skins), and then La mort de t'empereur [The Death of the Emperor) in 1989, Comedia tempio in 1990, Les Echelles d'Orphee [Orpheus' Ladders ; Orpehus' Scales) in 1992, Woyzeck and L'anatomie du fauve in 1994, Le Cri du cameleon [The Chameleon's Scream) in 1995 for the Centre National des arts du Cirque. The reworking of a new version of Woyzeck and Les Commentaires d'Habacuc [Habacuc's Commentaries ) followed in 1996, and Le vent dans le sac [The Wind in a Bag) in 1997.

Within the context of Le vif du sujet at the Festival d'Avignon, in July 1999, Josef Nadj created Petit psaume du matin for Dominique Mercy. In October 1999, he created at the Theatre de la Ville in Paris Les veilleurs, based on the piece by Franz Kafka, and finally, he presented in November 1999 Le temps du repli, trio for two dancers and one percussionist, at the Scene Nationale d'Orleans. In September 2001, he presented the new version of Petit psaume du matin with Dominique Mercy, at the Festival of Venice. In December 2001, he created Les philosophes, piece for five performers in homage to Bruno Schulz, at the Dance Festival of Cannes. In June 2002, he presented his last creation Journal d'un Inconnu at La Biennale di Venezia. Since 1995, he has been the director of the Centre Choregraphique National d'Orleans. It is on the world of Bruno Schulz, his life and his work, that Josef Nadj has based The Philosophers. "Today the word is nothing more than a fragment, a mere rudiment of an ancient and completely integrated body of mythology. (...) it reaches out to make thousands of different combinations, like the scattered segments of the legendary serpent for ever seeking each other amongst the shadows. (...) as soon as the word, freed from constraints, is left to itself to follow its own laws, an inward regression occurs: then it strains to become complete again, to rediscover its ancient links, its meaning, its primeval state in the original motherland of words - and it is then that poetry is born," "Poetry lies in the short circuits of meaning that are produced between words, it is a sudden outburst of the primitive myths." Bruno Schulz The Mythification of Reality /The cinnamon shops

THE PHILOSOPHERS