Babelle Heureuse

Paradis and especially Le jardin io io ito ito celebrated the polyphony of cultures and dances. In his extraordinary cosmopolitan garden, José Montalvo (working with Dominique Hervieu, an exceptional performer in all the works and also his associate choreographer), cultivated the art of fragmentation, juxtaposition, collage and telescoping. Babelle Heureuse not only evokes the encounter and confrontation of movement, but also its exchange and communication between the dancers. (...) Babel’s curse, the confusion of languages, is turned around here in a playful way to evoke a form of jubilation brought on by languages, a joyous tribute to pluralism and cosmopolitanism. This poetic conception of multiplicity, a way of thumbing one’s nose at all forms of xenophobia, has an ethical dimension – a moral attitude of resistance toward all forms of barbarism.

(...) Montalvo has chosen a form of expression with infinite metamorphosis. He proceeds by fragments: it’s a way of escaping linear narration. From capoeira, hip hop, acrobatics, African dance, ballet through to baroque, the choreography fans out corporeal possibilities by harnessing the appetite for movement, the jubilation of physical exercise, the jubilation of virtuosity – all things that are today regarded as suspicious to orthodox of contemporary dance.

Théâtre National de Chaillot bulletin

The title of their current show, Babelle Heureuse, is borrowed from postmodern guru Roland Barthes, and, like Barthes, they aim to recast the curse of Babel as a blessing.

Judith Mackrell, The Guardian

“In the Bible, diversity is a source of conflict,” says Hervieu. “But for us, diversity is a way of creating connections. Our aesthetic is premised on diversity.” This has always been the Montalvo-Hervieu agenda. All their pieces become hymns to diversity, demonstrations that harmonious difference is not only desirable, but achievable.

(...) Babelle Heureuse celebrates its diversity through multiple means – film as well as dance, music and song. But, whereas previously the cultures have merely been juxtaposed, here they are more integrated, more hybridised.

Nadine Meisner, The Independent

Whether the inspiration of José Montalvo comes from Baroque or Surrealism, what he wants to bring about in his work, it is so to say a radical even naive notion, that open-mindedness can be achieved by joy, rather than by theory. His defence of joy can be seen in his images, but even more the movement on the stage expresses it. Montalvo (...) claims that the arts, especially dance, are here to help people in their coexistence, because the fight for this co- existence is only commencing.

Dominique Frétard, Le Monde