Aggression, anger and brutality are deplored yet fascinating attributes of the human body. Ruth Childs explores these phenomena in her new solo Blast!, focusing on the violent and explosive but also the suffering body. The gifted niece of the great postmodern dance artist Lucinda Childs says that she developed this piece out of a need to “respond to violence by embodying and transforming it in my work”. Ruth Childs attributes abundant transformative potential to the embodiment of the aggressive to ideally matched music. This is why the London-born choreographer even dances figures that frighten and disgust her, doing so with striking expressiveness, empathy and even a tendency towards humour – so as to understand and demonstrate the movements, grimaces, noises and words produced by angry bodies.
Choreography, performance: Ruth Childs
Technical direction and light design: Joana Oliveira
Sound design and research: Stéphane Vecchione
Artistic collaboration: Bryan Campbell
Costume design: Coco Petitpierre
Costume production: Anne Tesson, Coralie Chauvin
Outside eye: Cécile Bouffard
Coaching: Michèle Gurtner
Delegated production, administration, diffusion: Tutu Production, Lise Leclerc and Cécilia Lubrano
Coproduction: Pavillon ADC – Genève (CH), La Bâtie-Festival de Genève, Arsenic Centre d’art scénique contemporain, Lausanne , Atelier de Paris/CDCN, CCN de Tours / Thomas Lebrun (dans le cadre de l'accueil studio), Centre chorégraphique national de Rillieux-la-Pape/direction Yuval PICK, A-CDCN (Les Hivernales – CDCN d’Avignon, La Manufacture – CDCN Nouvelle-Aquitaine Bordeaux · La Rochelle, L’échangeur – CDCN Hauts-de-France, Le Dancing CDCN Dijon Bourgogne-Franche-Comté, Chorège CDCN, Le Pacifique – CDCN Grenoble – Auvergne – Rhône-Alpes, Touka Danses – CDCN Guyane, Atelier de Paris / CDCN, Le Gymnase CDCN Roubaix - Hauts-de-France, POLE-SUD CDCN / Strasbourg, La Place de la Danse – CDCN Toulouse / Occitanie, La Maison CDCN Uzès Gard Occitanie, La Briqueterie CDCN du Val-de-Marne)
With support from: Pro Helvetia fondation Suisse pour la culture, the Stanley Thomas Johnson foundation, the Lo Studio – Performing Arts Centre, Bellinzona – Switzerland, CORODIS and the Canton of Geneva
Many thanks to: Adèle Ottiger and the Théâtre Sévelin 36 Lausanne, Jérôme Richer, Odds Bodkin, Lou Forster, Dominique Dardant, Leila Chakroun, Florence Magni, Susan
