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Just the Steps

Noé Soulier enters the space without warning, and it takes a few seconds for the chattering audience to register the man now standing before them, dressed simply in a grey t-shirt and black pants, barefoot. This is, admittedly, an unconventional performance, and even the space itself establishes this.

Performance

Noé Soulier: “Movement on Movement”

Place

L’Alliance, New York, NY, September 24, 2025

Words

Rebecca Deczynski

Noé Soulier's “Movement on Movement.” Photograph by Elena Olivo

Around the perimeter of the sky room of L’Alliance–a French school and cultural center located in midtown Manhattan—is a single row of chairs, arranged in the round. In front of them individual gray-green pillows, which ushers beckon audience members to sit upon if their accessibility needs enable them to do so. A wall-sized slanted window, which acts as the backdrop for this show, lets in no light. The sun has set, and a storm seems to be brewing.

We are here to see Soulier perform the New York premiere of “Mouvement sur mouvement,” or “Movement on movement”—a choreographed lecture inspired by William Forsythe’s Improvisation Technologies. Released via CD-ROM in 1999 (and now available online via YouTube) Improvisation Technologies—A Tool for the Analytical Dance Eye is an interactive guide to how the choreographer approaches improvisation, broken down into multiple parts and types of movement. 

Soulier’s “Movement on movement” is, quite literally, a lecture. The Paris-born choreographer begins by addressing the audience with an anecdote about one might find, on any tour bus, a man who feels the need to point out the beauty of surrounding things, even if they are obvious, to the people around him. Soulier, he assents, is this man. For the following 40 minutes or so, he demonstrates this by speaking philosophically and physically about the possibilities of movement.

Noé Soulier's “Movement on Movement.” Photograph by Elena Olivo

Noé Soulier's “Movement on Movement.” Photograph by Elena Olivo

Where Forsythe, in his digital guide, is prescriptive, Soulier plays far more the part of the philosopher. He talks about “mechanically derived motion” as opposed to movements driven by expression. He references the choreographer Trisha Brown several times. Every so often, he meditates on what makes an arabesque an arabesque, and how, when ballet students learn an arabesque, they are not told what to do. They are shown, and corrected from there. Soulier, moving throughout all of this, does not do any arabesques.

Instead, Soulier moves by following many of the motions that Forsythe himself demonstrates. He creates lines within space by drawing his forearm, horizontal, up and down from the ground as he crouches and stands—a kind of movement that Forsythe defines as “extrusion.” Many of his steps involve the isolation of one body part or another, almost like a lesson in anatomy and physics. Where other choreographers migh characterize their movements—turning a reach into an expression of longing, for instance—Soulier’s focus is entirely on the physical act itself. After all, that’s the big question he explores with this piece, he explains in his program notes: “How can movement be about movement?”

Noé Soulier's “Movement on Movement.” Photograph by Elena Olivo

Noé Soulier's “Movement on Movement.” Photograph by Elena Olivo

The answer might very well be to divorce it from its outside context. Soulier’s lecture starts with him using his body to describe this philosophy of movement, but his choreography shifts into patterns that don’t immediately relate to what he is describing. He might lift a foot in tendu, and bring it mechanically back, three shifts, into coupé. There are propulsive moments in his movements, which seem to arise from physical inevitability—it’s just where his body needs to go next. At one point, his sweeping motions lead him to lie on his back, faced away from the audience, and he breathes, looking up at the ceiling. He is still and quiet for at least a minute. And then he continues.

Soulier articulates every motion carefully; he isn’t just moving, he is acting on the environment just as the environment is acting on him. There’s something transfixing about this, and as he goes on, I realize that my attention fades a bit from his lecture as I watch him traverse the space. The movement has my full focus.

Rebecca Deczynski

Rebecca Deczynski is a New York City-based writer and editor publishes the newsletter Mezzanine Society. Her work has appeared in publications including Inc., Domino, NYLON, and InStyle. She graduated from Barnard College cum laude with a degree in English and a minor in dance.

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