When the lights were turned off at the Qatar National Theatre, darkness embraced visual and aural magic as the French dancing crew leapt and moved about on stage and gave new meaning to light-catchers. The French Institute in Qatar recently presented to Qatar a multi-tasking, multimedia, multi-talented performance group by the name of ‘Turn off the Light’ and the audience of around 500 couldn’t get enough of the high-flying high jinks.
A heady mash of the crew’s hip-hop dance, music and some spellbinding light-painting has led their act to be described thus: Ink becomes light, paper becomes photography, calligraphy becomes choreography. As part of a regional tour, Doha witnessed the various artistes of different disciplines string together a story through visual elements, calligraphy, hip-hop dance and contemporary movement.
The French Institute calls the show a dream come true, and understandably so. “The dream of bringing visual art on stage. To try to approach a perfect mix in which the danced movement is sublimated by calligraphy and in which the calligraphic movement become gestures linked to the power of the rhythm,” the Institute says. “Each performance is unique to create instant wonder.”
The crew is headed by Julien Breton, who is the calligrapher and artistic director of the production. Breton is joined by contemporary dancer Stephanie Naud, B-Boy Razy Essid, DJ One Up, photographer Cisco Gallard and light effects wizard Vincent Potreau. Community caught up with Breton to know more about the spectacle in which dance, music and bright calligraphy sensationally collide.

Tell us a little about your group. When did you guys form, and where all have you performed?
My tryst with calligraphy began 15 years ago, my solo performance in light calligraphy started 10 years ago, and I created the company five years ago. My dream was to illustrate the link between calligraphy, dance, and music. So I decided to ask to my friend, DJ One Up, photographer David Gallard, and the technical director and light manager to imagine how it was technically possible to pull off a show that features both light painting and dance. Next, we added two dancers Stéphanie Naud and Razy Essid and the adventure began. We began to perform in France, but since I am well-versed with Arabic calligraphy, we performed at Katara, here in Doha, three years ago. After that, we toured Morocco, Algeria, and recently the Middle East and the Gulf.

What is the biggest challenge in bringing dance, music, and calligraphy, together on stage?
I would say the biggest challenge is to make one forget the technique. As light-painting is very precise, we worked a lot to understand how to put together a dynamic show. Secondly, the synchronisation that we have together as a team is very important. On quite a few occasions, all five of us need to be synchronised to some very precise moments. The photographer needs to time his flash at the dancer at just the moment when the light manager needs to switch off the light, while the DJ plays the chief orchestrator of this synchronicity.

In what ways does your group try to push boundaries and find new avenues of performance art?
First of all, the fact that our whole performance is live poses a big challenge to us. That’s because if one of us makes a mistake, you can see it straightaway on the visual. Two, I think that this is a new form of show; a mix of theatre, dance, music and visual arts. The temporality of the show is what’s really distinctive. With dynamic acts of dance and mesmerising acts of various elements, I put in the light-calligraphy.
How was it for you to co-ordinate dance and calligraphy with the Qatar youth who participated in workshops organised by your group?
It is something we are doing often. With each performance we do in a city, we are working with the local youth to let them create the first part of our show. We hold a workshop for light-painting, hip-hop dancing, contemporary dancing, deejaying, and photography. We taught them the roots of our arts and also how to mix our different disciplines together. Each person in our company likes to teach and share, and that’s also one of the reasons why I chose them.