La Haine triomphe à Zürich.
Dirigeant 11 interprètes, le chorégraphe lausannois pose un jalon dans les annales de la danse en Suisse. A l'opposé de ses précédents spectacles, une œuvre drôle et sexy d'inspiration jeune.Avec dix minutes de standing ovation lors de la création au Théâtre Municipal de Lucerne au début du mois, la nouvelle pièce de Philippe Saire, La haine de la musique, crée l'événement à Steps#7. 24Heures, Patrice Lefrançois
Philippe Saire aime la musique pour mieux la haïr
[…] Le résultat est époustouflant. Et l'on a vite compris que pour créer un spectacle qui parle de la haine de la musique, de ses derives, il faut d'abord l'aimer. L'aimer pour son rythme, celui du piétinement des danseurs en l'occurrence, de leur respiration ou de leurs cris. L'aimer surtout pour la joie et l'exaltation que mystérieusement elle procure, à l'instar de ce morceau de fanfare tsigane, dans la meilleure tradition de Kusturica : les danseurs giclent dans l'air, rebondissent, s'entrechoquent et courent à toute allure, pour éclater dans leurs habits rouge et orange tel un feu d'artifice. Ainsi seulement on comprend les côtés sombres de la musique, assourdissants, asservissants même. Et nous voilà, le souffle à peine repris, les yeux rivés sur cette scène qui nous glace d'effroi, et qui montre un danseur dompté par un autre à l'aide d'une simple télécommande. Il court en rond comme une bête jusqu'à ce qu'il tombe de fatigue, en sueur.Le Temps, Anna Hohler

The Hatred of Music a triumph in Zürich
Philippe Saire's new work for 11 dancers sets a landmark on the Swiss dance scene Amusing, sexy and youthful, it breaks away from previous styles
Rewarded by a standing ovation lasting ten minutes (some reports said twenty) the new Philippe Saire creation The Hatred of Music was one of the most remarkable events of the "Steps" dance festival in Lucerne at the beginning of May. For a self-supporting company this piece with 11 dancers is a considerable achievement, and will go down as a landmark on the Swiss dance scene.
In contrast to its forerunners such as Lightness, or Life and Morals of a Night Chameleon, the new piece is amusing, sexy and youthful. Seen against the somewhat intellectual orientation of Philippe Saire's previous works, it addresses an astonishingly different range of moods, revealing in the process the richness of its potential. It begins curiously with two numbers that parody the karaoke craze – superbly done by Manuel Chabanis and Anne Delahaye, one of the company's five new dancers – and ends with another reference to this form of entertainment. Karaoke in contemporary dance? With Philippe Saire of course, we travel well off the beaten track, but it could perhaps be asked where he intends to lead us. Into caricature? Satire? Mockery of what passes today for music? Or of dance, even?
The provocative title is borrowed from a book by Pascal Quignard. The choreographer explains that like Quignard, he believes that music stems from sources deep inside us, which vibrate to the rhythms of life. Yet despite this credo, the work appears to evolve within a universe of its own, developing a relationship of organic connivances, sometimes with music in the wider sense, sometimes with the audience. The original parts of the score are by the composer Arthur Besson, who also plays the guitar onstage and is joined, from time to time, by the dancers Nabih Amaraoui and Matthieu Burner on percussion and cello respectively. In their dual roles they reflect the work itself, which focuses now on dance, now on music. The story unfolds in successive stages, switching between phases where action remains dormant, and others of sudden, highly amusing choreographic expression. Sometimes the dancers themselves become the instruments of percussion. At first it is hard to grasp exactly what is intended, particularly as the choreographer also uses some carefully edited video images by Enrique Fontanilles, incorporated within the lighting effects of Jean-Marie Bosshard. However, after some initial hesitation in decoding the message, the spectator is launched decisively into the atmosphere of the next phase. The result is a well-integrated, highly original creation.
The humour of the work does not disguise its precise timing – it runs as regularly as a Swiss watch. The cast is well-knit and brilliantly costumed, and this latest creation is an example of the healthy state of Swiss choreography today.24 Heures, Lausanne, Patrice Lefrançois (May 16, 2000)

The body's silent music
The music of bodily collision. First performance in Lucerne of The Hatred of Music, a new work from the Philippe Saire Company. Excellent
Music and dance are practically inseparable – or so we always thought. Yet the fragility of their union, which can resemble a struggle for supremacy, has been discovered by a succession of choreographers and composers. Stravinski, who worked for many years with George Balanchine, compared the relationship between music and dance to an unhappy marriage. And the contemporary Swiss choreographer Philippe Saire has to admit that, in the end "the music exerts a powerful domination". The music determines the audience's perception of a work – it cannot be set apart from the dance.
Philippe Saire, whose dance language oscillating between abstraction and storytelling has marked contemporary ballet, has created another new work: The Hatred of Music. It is danced to sounds that run the gamut through music, vibration, noise. The dancers' bodies follow their own "inner music", in tune with the physical rhythms of heartbeat, breathing, the flow of energy.
New perceptions
The Hatred of Music is a strong work. It is a clash between what we are used to hearing and what we are used to seeing – a splintering collision out of which a new perception emerges: the colors of the sounds that arise out of dancers' bodies. The magical moments of the work occur when silence becomes body music, and body music silence. While the ear captures the sound, the eye follows the dance.
Philippe Saire lets the music in this work open new perceptions. It is a collage that shocks or seduces, unites or separates, excites or deflates. Sometimes it inspires, sometimes it drags, until the rhythms of the body again take control.
Vibrations
When the piece begins, a male and a female dancer appear as singers. Their song is of heartfelt pain, a song that grips us, shakes us, courses in our blood, swings in our soul. The eleven excellent dancers in ever-changing formations are now galvanized, now paralyzed by the sounds; sometimes they bring broad brush-strokes to the composition, sometimes they form fine yet eloquent patterns, like sand on a surface that is set in vibration by sound. Some of the music is from recordings, but some is played live by a guitarist on stage. The dance formations vary too – as duos, as tightly woven carpets in movement, or as randomly formed knots and bunches. And the reaction of the other dancers to solos is sometimes rapt, sometimes nonchalantly inattentive.
Complex simplicity
Sound is vibration, is energy, is frequency – and vice-versa. Even the dancers' orange-red costumes suggest full and half-tone scales, and the video images in the background evoke their own tone-colors. We are reminded of the physical law that allows frequencies to be manifested as color, sound or movement, and that many artists have incorporated in their techniques. In Philippe Saire's new work, this law has led to the fascinating choreography we saw in Lucerne.
The Hatred of Music is less puzzling, less complex than many of the choreographer's earlier works – or so it seems at first. A closer view reveals, however, the refined skill by which the complex theme is hidden within such simple scenery. Refinement, in fact, that is perfectly appropriate to the complicated relationship between music and dance. Neue Luzerner Zeitung, Luzern, Eva Bucher (May 8, 2000)

Steps dance festival, Switzerland
The body's secret music
The Philippe Saire Company at the Gessnerallee Theaterhaus
One of the principal poles of this year's "Steps" festival organized by the Swiss supermarket chain Migros, whose policy is to strongly encourage art and culture, is its collaboration with Swiss choreographers. The Philippe Saire Company, which presented its latest creation The Hatred of Music at the Gessnerallee Theaterhaus, Zürich, demonstrated that it is fully entitled to a place within the international framework of the festival.
The piece is a cry of revolt against the all-invading "music" of today. In supermarkets, at the hairdresser's, even on the bus, we have to put up with syrupy, indefinable wailings, inane radio chatter, or muffled thuddings from people's headphones. When the Philippe Saire Company was in Brazil last year, they found that the effort to shut out unwanted musical noise took even more energy than in Europe. So The Hatred of Music, Philippe Saire's latest work, is in part a personal reaction to the tyranny of noise today.
Philippe Saire believes that music comes from the body. And with this new work, whose title is borrowed from Pacal Quignard's book of the same name, he enlarges on the theme, not only with reference to music but also to silence. Eleven dancers express the concept through movement accompanied by bodily sounds: footsteps on the floor, handclaps and mutual slappings, bodily collisions. Often to the notes of Arthur Besson's guitar compositions, that sometimes seem to throw or float the dancers across the stage.
The Hatred of Music is not without music. There's even karaoke, as well as flute tones and the voices of two members of the troupe, in their orange-red costumes which underline the way the dancers' energy is first gathered, then suddenly released into the surrounding empty space. In this work, the dance has become more physical, the language more powerful and developed. Time and time again the dancers hurl themselves to the floor, spin through the air, leap high and fall far. But suddenly, in mid-movement, they stop, seemingly to recover their rebellious limbs. The music ceases, and an inner, intimate, soundless music begins – a hand that uncurls, an arm that slowly stretches – following individual, secret rhythms. There is stillness – but a stillness that abruptly explodes upwards and outwards, releasing its own, pent-up energy.
Jean-Marie Bosshard, Philippe Saire's lighting designer for many years, has incorporated a screen onto which the dancers' shadows are projected; also there is a suspended video screen with images – carefully conceived and artistically realized – that reflect the alternation between sound and silence. The energy concept of the choreography is economical – it is only where the effects can be maximized, that all of the troupe is deployed, and sound replaces silence.
The Zürich audience loved The Hatred of Music, applauding loud and long. Steps must soon look for additional theatre-space.
Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Zürich, Lilo Weber (May 15, 2000)