This suspended poetic space is shaped by a scenography that remains in constant dialogue with the dance. The lighting design by Rémi Nicolas sculpts a serene yet continuously shifting landscape. Through the use of side projectors and carefully cut light, Nicolas highlights the dancers’ contours, emphasising their plasticity. Light enters into a refined dialogue with the background scenery, allowing the performers to appear as if moving within the texture of rice paper itself. Calligraphic projections devised by Nobel Prize for Literature laureate Gao Xingjian generate the illusion of a forest and function as resonant spatial fields. Hills unfold against uncontaminated horizons, a mutable moon reflects the silhouettes of trees, and the visual imagery opens onto a deeply contemplative landscape.

The choreographic language is marked by suspension and tension, articulated through collective moments and a constellation of solos that continually interact with one another. The dancers relate through a spontaneous, experiential dynamism, operating like moving magnetic fields, sighing and vibrating like natural elements themselves. All parts of the body, hair included, participate in motion, generating spins reminiscent of whirling dervishes and a sustained use of centrifugal force. Moments of intense sorority emerge throughout the piece, releasing a sacerdotal energy shaped by ritualistic music and movement patterns reminiscent of archetypal folk dances and archaic rites rooted in communal harmony with nature. In a final, breathtaking image, as the ensemble lies prostrate upon the floor, a lone woman in the background gazes towards the moon just as the lights fade into profound silence.

All dancers were barefoot, with the notable exception of Alexis Ochin, who embodied the destructive and transformative power of fire. His shoes produce a harder, more earthly impact on the stage, evoking a trace of civilisation and inducing unsettling fear. An almost shamanic figure, with his long, loose hair, he channels the vital yet dangerous energy of fire, incarnating the poetic fragment in flames evoked in the subtitle: a raw, untamed and faintly disturbing force that reminds us that nature is not only a space of harmony, but also one of devastating power. Sara Orselli, Carlson’s long standing muse, is sublime. Enveloped in a monumental white gown that subtly echoes the iconic red dress of “Blue Lady,” a powerful symbol of repertoire transmission, she transforms the female form into a breathtaking ephemeral sculpture filled with air, evoking a transcendent, wintry wisdom. All the other dancers who shaped this Parisian farewell were wonderful: Chinatsu Kosakatani, Juha Marsalo, Céline Maufroid, Riccardo Meneghini, Isida Micani, Yutaka Nakata, Sara Simeoni.