Eastman/Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui Fractus V 

“Truly dazzling...the dancing by Cherkaoui’s Eastman company is...superlative.”—The Telegraph (UK)

Acclaimed Belgian dance artist Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui challenges divisive fearmongering while celebrating the strengths of community in this ambitious new work that makes its US premiere in Columbus. Created for his company Eastman, Fractus V features five sublimely articulate dancers, each from a different dance background, who both merge into a fluidly expressive whole and take solos that showcase each dancer’s individual style. The work is performed to live music by artists from Japan, Korea, and India.

Taking its title from the fractures that are a natural part of growth, Fractus V also poetically investigates the importance of skepticism and self-determination in a world where information is increasingly manipulated. In creating the work, Cherkaoui was inspired by the writings of political philosopher Noam Chomsky. As Cherkaoui puts it, “Chomsky’s fundamental plea for freedom of speech against the political attempts to control and to manipulate the media resonates with my need as an artist for a space to constantly reinvent my own identity. This necessary process of renewal doesn’t happen gradually. It happens through radical fractures and being able to let go of the past. Every day is a rite of passage, a point of no return.”

Co-produced by the Wexner Center, Fractus V offers a very rare opportunity to see Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui perform since his appointment as artistic director of the prestigious Royal Ballet of Flanders in 2015, a position he maintains alongside his independent choreography for Eastman. We take pride that Cherkaoui had his US premiere at the Wexner Center in 2003 with Foi, which he created for the vanguard Belgian company les ballets C de la B. In 2006 we co-commissioned and hosted the US premiere of zero degrees, his riveting collaboration with Akram Khan. Columbus dance followers can now delight in being the first in this country to see this dynamic, eloquent, and timely new work.

Fractus V is coproduced by Wexner Center for the Arts at The Ohio State University, deSingel International Arts Campus (Antwerp), Migros Culture Percentage Dance Festival Steps (Zurich), Sadler’s Wells (London), PINA40 (Wuppertal), Baerum Kulturhus (Oslo), Tanzhaus NRW (Düsseldorf), Schauspiel Köln, National Arts Centre (Ottawa), Ludwigsburger Schlossfestspiele, La Villette (Paris), and Les Théâtres de la Ville de Luxembourg.

This project is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts.