Gisèle Vienne
Crowd
© Estelle Hanania ©
© Estelle Hanania ©
© Paulina Pisarek et Caroline Detournay ©
© Paulina Pisarek et Caroline Detournay ©
© Estelle Hanania ©
© Estelle Hanania ©
© Estelle Hanania ©
Devised, choreographed and designed by Gisèle Vienne
Assisted by, Anja Röttgerkamp et Nuria Guiu Sagarra
Mix, edit and playlist selection, Peter Rehberg
Sound diffusion supervisor, Stephen O’Malley
Sound engineer, Adrien Michel
Lighting, Patrick Riou
Dramaturgy, Gisèle Vienne and Denis Cooper
Assistant directors, Anja Röttgerkamp and Nuria Guiu Sagarra
Production and distribution, Alma Office : Anne-Lise Gobin, Alix Sarrade & Camille Queval
Administration, Etienne Hunsinger
With Philip Berlin, Marine Chesnais, Kerstin Daley-Baradel, Sylvain Decloitre, Sophie Demeyer, Vincent Dupuy, Massimo Fusco, Rémi Hollant, Oskar Landström, Théo Livesey, Louise Perming, Katia Petrowick, Jonathan Schatz, Henrietta Wallberg and Tyra Wigg
Executive production DACM // Co-produced by Le Maillon, Théâtre de Strasbourg – scène européenne ; Wiener Festwochen ; manège – Scène Nationale – Reims ; Théâtre National de Bretagne – Centre Européen Théâtral et Chorégraphique (Rennes) ; CDN Orléans/Loiret/Centre ; La Filature, Scène nationale (Mulhouse) ; BIT Teatergarasjen (Bergen) ; and Nanterre-Amandiers, centre dramatique national // In association with Nanterre-Amandiers, centre dramatique national ; and Festival d’Automne à Paris // With support from CCN2 – Centre Chorégraphique national de Grenoble // With support from CND centre national de la danse // Gisèle Vienne's company has the agreement from the Ministère de la culture et de la communication – DRAC Grand Est, la Région Grand Est et la Ville de Strasbourg
The company receives regular support from the Institut Français for its tours abroad.
Gisèle Vienne associated artist to Nanterre-Amandiers, centre dramatique national, since January 2014, and to Théâtre national de Bretagne – Rennes
First performed on 8th Novembre 2017 at Maillon, Théâtre de Strasbourg – scène européenne
Crowd, a piece for 15 dancers, delivers a painstaking dissection of the dark side within us and our need for violence. It represents a culminating point in Gisèle Vienne’s trajectory. Her healthy disrespect for the different artistic practices restores to the stage its unique cathartic power.
Behind their technical and formal perfection, Gisèle Vienne’s productions are often perceived as being “disturbing” or, at the very least, unclassifiable. Since Showroomdummies (2001), she has been digging deeper and deeper into the eternal duality - Eros and Thanatos, Apollo and Dionysos - to be found at the core of our humanity. For Gisèle Vienne, the innate thirst for violence that we all carry within us also has something of the erotic and the sacred. Crowd, a choreography devised for 15 performers attending a festive event, represents the coming together of the different aspects of her unerring, unique form of research. Its overflowing, polyphonic form brings to (black) light all the various mechanisms underpinning manifestations of collective euphoria such as this, and “the way in which a given community can handle (or not) the expression of violence”. With a background in music, puppetry, philosophy and the visual arts, the universe that Gisèle Vienne brings to the stage is a fragmentary one. Different realities and time-scales rub shoulders, and the jerky movements and gestures owe as much to urban dance as they do to puppetry. Within this universe, Dennis Cooper’s text and the music by the KTL duo become instruments of theatre. They disturb our perceptions, simultaneously blurring the frontiers between interiority and exteriority, daydream and frenzied rave party. Alternating between the very contemporary and, thanks to its the cathartic dimension, the powerfully archaic, Crowd brings to the stage a dialogue “with our innermost selves”.