Performances 2024

Performances 2024

A performer lowers his knees, bends forwards, spreads his arms and sticks his tongue out very far.

Jérôme Bel & Estelle Zhong Mengual (FR)
Non human dances

© Véronique Ellena

This is what iconic works such as Nelken by Pina Bausch, Loïe Fuller’s Danse serpentine and Isadora Duncan’s Water Study have in common: they present dances inspired by non-humans. Dance conceptualist Jérôme Bel and art historian Estelle Zhong Mengual from Paris have joined forces to show the connections stage dance has established with the subject of nature in of the ecological crisis. According to Bel, their project Non human dances “measure the different strategies that certain choreographers in the history of Western art dance have imagined in order to represent what is called non-human nowadays”. Zhong Mengual postulates that the Anthropocene corresponds to a “crisis of sensitivity” that is “characterised by the collapse of the aesthetic relationship between human beings and nature”. Dance can contribute to the urgently needed change of perspective. This dedicated curation also includes works by Marius Petipa, Xavier Le Roy and Sergiu Matis.

Austrian Premiere

Duration: 75 Min

In English and a short text in French with German surtitles.
This performance contains nudity.
7.8.2024, 21:00
Volkstheater
9.8.2024, 21:00
Volkstheater
© Véronique Ellena
© Véronique Ellena
© Véronique Ellena
© Véronique Ellena
© Véronique Ellena
© Véronique Ellena
© Véronique Ellena
Video Credits

CREDITS

Concept: Jérôme Bel and Estelle Zhong Mengual

Text: Jérôme Bel and Estelle Zhong Mengual (and extracts of Baptiste Morizot, Andrea Olga Mantovani: S’enforester, Paris, Éditions d’une Rive à l’Autre, 2022)

Choreographies: Pina Baush, The Nelken Line (Music: West End Blues, composed by Joseph Oliver, performed by Louis Armstrong); extract of the piece: Nelken (Les oeillets), 1982 (choreography and stage direction: Pina Bausch; scenography: Peter Pabst; costume design: Marion Cito; music: Jones, Lehar, Oliver, Tau474a1er, Tucker and others; dramaturgy: Raimund Hoghe; collaboration: Matthias Burkert and Hans Pop; copyright: Verlag der Autoren, Frankfurt, for Pina Bausch Foundation, Wuppertal)
Gaspard Charon, The entrance of the sun; Isadora Duncan, Water study (music: Franz Schubert);
Loïe Fuller (music: Camille Saint Saens); Lev Ivanov and Marius Petitpa; Xavier Le Roy, The lions’ vocabulary; Sergiu Matis, The Siberian crane, extract from Extinction Room (Hopeless.), (concept and choreography: Sergiu Matis, sound composition: Antye Greie-Ripatti, text: Philip Ingman)

Performance: Gaspard Charon, Sherwood Chen, Chiara Gallerani, Elisabeth Schwartz, Lisa Vilret and Estelle Zhong Mengual/Stéphanie Aflalo
Technical direction: Maxime Kurvers
Executive direction R.B. and artistic guidance: Rebecca Lasselin
Management: Sandro Grando
Assistance: Chiara Gallerani 



Production: R.B. Jérôme Bel

Co-production: Festival d’Automne à Paris (FR), Musée du Louvre Paris (FR), Centre national de la danse (FR), Fonds de dotation du Quartz – Scène nationale de Brest (FR), Maison de la danse – Lyon (FR), Pôle européen de creation (FR) and R.B. Jérôme Bel, Paris (FR)
Studio spaces: Ménagerie de Verre, Paris (FR)

Thanks: Sébastien Allard, Cédric Andrieux and Raphaelle Delaunay/CNSMDP, Carolin Brandl/Choreographing Politics at Bode-Museum Berlin (DE), Salomon Bausch, Ismaël Dia and Annette Reschke/Pina Bausch Foundation (DE), Ana Janevski/MoMA (US), Laetitia Dosch, Valérie Dréville, Claire Le Gouic, Baptiste Morizot and Madeline Ritter

R.B. Jérôme Bel receives support from the French Ministry of Culture (Direction régionale des affaires culturelles d’Île-de-France). Jérome Bel is an associated artist of Le Quartz – scène nationale de Brest (FR), Centre national de la danse Pantin (FR) and Comédie de Caen CDN de Normandie (FR).