Maguy Marin

When we are dazzled by the shape of a show, it brings with it a promise of retinal persistence. When it provides substance as well, the images imprinted on our minds invariably leave behind a reminiscence of a meditation of some kind. Checkmate.
The king just needs to behave himself. With Maguy Marin, art is above all political. Here, the artist brings together ten performers and, drawing on the strength of her choreographic writing, serves us up with a cross-section of the masked faces of omnipotent neoliberalism. At the core of this new opus is the artist’s preoccupation with the insidious propaganda which entreats the masses to sacrifice their lives for the well-being of an unseen élite. Spin doctors and the like are nothing new, but this handing out of submission to subjugation strategies has reached such proportions that whoever fails to adapt to the diverse criteria of profitability is systematically brushed aside. With its after-works and happy hours, our all-smiling society carries with it the rancid stench of hypocrisy. Beneath its festive facelift lurks nothing more than hidden anxiety and existential emptiness. The task that Maguy Marin and her collaborators have set themselves is that of bringing to the limelight these mixed feelings which haunt us in the face of the absurd and angst-ridden world in which we live. Rather like one of the jolly old kings of the burlesque who, with catastrophe looming on the horizon, finally acknowledges, without implacable humour, the impending doom, Maguy Marin restocks the river of our true passions... with hope. Only then can we be assured of the continued existence of our race in the most dignified way possible.