Josef Nadj in Calcutta on Tuesday. Picture by Pabitra Das

Josef Nadj, one of the biggest French names in choreography of contemporary dance, is in Calcutta with Le Temps du Repli or A Time to Withdraw. The show (which Nadj himself presents on stage with dancer Cecile Themblemont) is about a man and a woman who suddenly realise that it is time for them to withdraw and contemplate not only on their personal histories but also that of all couples starting from Adam and Eve.

Nadj believes in precise planning, a lot of props and costumes, secrets perhaps to why the show was so successful in Ahmedabad and Mumbai. Le Temps? will be presented by The French Association and the French Embassy in India at the Gorky Sadan at 7 pm on Wednesday.

Nadj has had a mixed training in visual arts, music history, martial arts, theatre and dance. He has displayed installations combining sculpture, photography and drawings and had expositions of ink sketches.

But his first love obviously is dance, for which he trained extensively under Yves Cassati, Larri Leong and Japanese dancers. Indian dance, which he has occasionally seen at festivals in France, has filled him with “admiration for its complexities and harmony of music, movement and gesture”.

Nadj agreed that modern dance in its ability to absorb multicultural influences was fast becoming a new universal language. Music and dance, he said, were better able to draw nations and persons together because here (unlike theatre) there is no language barrier.

“There were so many young dancers in Mumbai who came backstage to congratulate us and know a little more about our new dance form,” he said.

Nadj generally likes to develop elaborate productions with 15 or more dancers, mostly on the works of his favourite writers ? Beckett, Kafka, Paz and others. But last July he presented an original composition on nature, Last Landscape.

The music for Le Temps? will be done by Vladimir Tarasov, costumes by Bjanka Ursulov and lighting by Raymond Blot. Later this week, the show will tour Chennai and Bangalore.