Damien Jalet / Kohei Nawa / Ballet du Grand Théâtre de Genève

With "Mirage", Damien Jalet presents his very first creation for the Ballet du Grand Théâtre of which he has been associate artist since 2022.
"Mirage" is also the fourth chapter in his collaboration with Japanese visual artist Kohei Nawa. After VESSEL (2016), Mist (2021) and Planet [wanderer] (2021, in 2023 at GTG), they continue their exploration of nature in perpetual metamorphosis, merging their respective disciplines and confronting the human body with different materials.

Inspired by the phenomena of mirages and Fata Morgana, optical illusions linked to specific meteorological conditions, caused by light being distorted as it passes through different-temperature layers of air – Damien Jalet and Kohei Nawa depict humanity wandering in a metaphorical desert in search of itself.

Through a series of transformations, the piece peels back the performers layer upon layer, exploring an endless variety of physical and emotional states.

Sometimes evoking the spectres of a civilization at the edge of a dry well, sometimes crossed with the dazzling colours and sensuality of tropical nature, Mirage passes through like a moving, fluctuating, waking dream of atmospheric phenomena.

Damien Jalet and Kohei Nawa will offer a hallucinatory, sensual, meditative and visceral quest for the human essence, beyond the veil of appearances.