[IRIS], 2023

IRIS is an original performance by Alessandro Sciarroni created at the invitation and on commission of the Festival d’Automne à Paris.

Beneath the majestic vaults of the Butte-aux-Cailles indoor swimming pool, a historic place with Art Nouveau architecture, the artist creates an ethereal space where the audience moves around disabled swimmers and a musical ensemble. Twelve singers perform a cappella Giovanni Pierluigi Da Palestrina’s Sicut Cervus, a sacred motet from the late 16th century.

The encounter between athletes and singers allows for reflection on the concept of physical training, for wondering whether one can float and sing at the same time, exploring how the voice changes while diving, and paying homage to the beauty and fragility of life. Symbolically, this performative installation aims to consider the public pool as a place of abandonment, regeneration, and overcoming of physical limits where, through contact with the water, one can release energy, defeat gravity, and connect with oneself.

A performance that bridges art and sport that makes reference to the Paris Olympic Games and, more specifically, to their less media-driven facet, the Paralympic Games.

[creation Alessandro Sciarroni
 / musical composition Aurora Bauzà and Pere Jou from Sicut Cervus, motet by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (1525-1594)

[Ensemble Dynamique
: direction Oussama Mhanna
 / singers Antoine Ageorges, Marc Alberto, Quentin Cendre-Malinas, Christophe Delerce, Aïda Delpuech, Luc Doval, Pierre-Louis Egloff, Louise Fudym, Irina Golovina, Emily Lechner, Cécile Massard, Marie-Josée Matar

]

[swimmers Emy Brouillard, Adam Moussa, Kylian Portal, Stéphanie, Eva and Julia Retailleau, Julie Rousseau / referee Virginie Portal
]

[costumes Ettore Lombardi
 / general coordination Lisa Delmas / advice and development Lisa Gilardino / administration and production Chiara Fava 
/ communication Pierpaolo Ferlaino / stage manager Mickaël Marchadier]

[production Festival d’Automne à Paris

 / labeled Paris 2024 – Olympiade Culturelle, as a part of the festival FORMES OLYMPIQUES and the Heritage Days / in partnership with the Butte-aux-Cailles swimming pool and the CENTQUATRE-PARIS]

[Alessandro Sciarroni is an associate artist of CENTQUATRE-PARIS and Triennale Milano Teatro 2022-2024]

[with the support of Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels / with the support of the Italian Cultural Institute in Paris]