"May B"

A strange group of shabby figures patters onstage. Several men, a few women in stained and worn-out white clothes, with tousled hair or nightcaps on their heads. They are waiting. But they seem to have forgotten what for: characters inspired by Samuel Beckett populate the legendary piece “May B” by the great French choreographer Maguy Marin. It is considered the most-performed contemporary dance piece and has enjoyed cult status since its first performance in 1981.
Marin, who is said to be nothing short of an early Pina Bausch with regard to her courage to break with viewing habits, entangles her Maybe people in music from Schubert’s “Winterreise”: “Der Doppelgänger“, “Der Leiermann”. To accompany a touchingly helpless scene featuring a birthday cake, ironically, “The Death and the Maiden” sounds. Like patients in a sanatorium for clowns gone crazy, with smeared black-and-white make-up on their grotesque faces, Maguy Marin’s characters form bizarre formations, only to bump into each other again absent-mindedly. They remain what they are until the end: petty and quarrelsome, fearful and sometimes obscene, clumsy and therefore surprisingly likeable.

Cie. Maguy Marin / CCN Rillieux-la-Pape - "Umwelt"

Cie. Maguy Marin / CCN Rillieux-la-Pape - "Creation 09"


"May B" Video Clip at the ImPulsTanz Gallery