Sutra

‘Working and creating in China means exploring another part of myself, a part which is still unknown,’ states Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui. In Sutra, the choreographer pursues his quest for a ‘world-work’ that is open to the most diverse cultures – cultures he explores in order to find temporary responses to his existential questions. For this work, he surrounded himself with fifteen Buddhist monks from the Shaolin temple. Among these experts in martial arts, it was their precision and economy of movement that really impressed him – their original, unified perception of space and the body. Sutra marks the return of the English artist Antony Gormley, who also collaborated with Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui on La Monnaie productions of Babel (words), Noetic, and Icon. For Sutra, Gormley has come up with an inventive, modular set that illustrates his interest in the body and the sometimes solitary place it occupies in a space... or in the void.