One of Switzerland’s most celebrated choreographers, Cindy Van Acker returns to the LAC with her new work, Pléïades, in absentia, in which five dancers engage with the work of avant-garde composer Iannis Xenakis, performed live by the Geneva-based collective Eklekto.

A free spirit and a rebel, whose revolutionary energy runs through the entire score, Xenakis is known for his mathematical approach to composition, his use of probability and his atypical scores, written not on traditional staves but on graph paper, like engineering drawings. Through these innovative methods, the Greek composer seeks to recreate natural phenomena and mass movements, making the world resonate: clouds, flocks, the force of a vital impulse.
Created in 1978 for six musicians and forty-eight instruments – including the sixxen, designed specifically for the work – Pléïades is a unique rhythmic composition, divided into four modular sections: Claviers, Métaux, Peaux and Mélanges.
To navigate this powerful and complex sonic landscape, Cindy Van Acker – winner of the Swiss Grand Prize for the Performing Arts / Hans Reinhart Ring in 2023 – continually explores the relationship with the music, bringing together on stage five dancers, six musicians from the Eklekto collective, and set and lighting designer Victor Roy. Together, they bring to light, within this vast space of impossibility, a few glimmers of freedom.