Drawing on extensive work on France’s popular public “balls” and their exploration of the emergence of dance in public space, Lyon-based choreographers Anne-Sophie Gabert and Julie Lefebvre have launched their latest project and collective, physical adventure. Friday is an immersive and theatrical street performance that gradually develops into contagious wild dances and initiation rituals, working with a DJ and eight dancers in an improvised dance-off and series of figures. The dancers, musicians and trainers from La Fabrique Fastidieuse transform the street into a place of celebration. Public space becomes a fun dance floor where spectators can partake in a liberating choreography and mass of moving bodies.

A DJ and a few dancers in the street looking to party into the weekend should be able to take over public space to create a “popular contemporary dance”. This is precisely what Lyon-based choreographers Anne-Sophie Gabert and Julie Lefebvre have attempted to achieve in the latest creation from La Fabrique Fastidieuse, following on from their pieces Borderline Blues, Motel Ascott, The Loukoum Experience, Breakfast (on the rocks) and the “celebrations” of Bal Experience and Bal Hypnotique.

Friday is clearly a nod to the end of the working week and the start of the weekend, with the expectation of greater excitement than the run-of-the-mill weekly routine. As for any initiation or rite of passage, this collective adventure can only begin by establishing shared trust and common codes (in this case, oriental dabke or traditional dances, in three stages, with the Crouzade, Farandole and line dancing. It kicks off with changing electro music and the story of eight actors, focusing on the unique, shared and collective desire to move with the rhythm in the form of contagious wild dancing. The lines between spectator and actor are gradually blurred in this immersive trance that takes us far away in a palpable joy, as we let go, exclaiming that “it’s now or never!”.