Wen Hui
New Report on Giving Birth
© New Report on Giving Birth, Wen Hui © Jörg Baumann ©
© New Report on Giving Birth, Wen Hui © Jörg Baumann ©
© New Report on Giving Birth, Wen Hui © Jörg Baumann ©
© New Report on Giving Birth, Wen Hui © Jörg Baumann ©
Concept and choreography, Wen Hui
Performers, Alessandra Corti, Patcharaporn Krüger-Distakul, Parvin Saljugi, Wen Hui
Dramaturgy, Alexandra Henning
Music, Mathias Engelke
Video, Rémi Crépeau
Light, Tanja Rühl
Light design assistant, Matthias Rieker
Consultant, Zhang Zhen
Booking, Damien Valette
Coordination, Louise Bailly
Producer, Katja Armknecht
Translation and creation of French surtitles, Maëlle Mas
Production Künstlerhaus Mousonturm - Frankfurt am Main; Living Dance Studio - Beijing
Coproduction Hellerau (Dresden); Zollverein Zeche (Essen); Théâtre de la Ville-Paris; Festival d'Automne à Paris
A project created in the framework of the Bündnisses internationaler Produktionshäuser and supported by the Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien
Within the framework of the Tanzplattform Rhein-Main, a project of the Künstler*innenhaus Mousonturm and Hessisches Staatsballett, made possible by Kulturfonds Frankfurt RheinMain and financed by Kulturamt der Stadt Frankfurt am Main, Hessisches Ministerium für Wissenschaft und Kunst und der Stiftungsallianz [Aventis Foundation, BHF BANK Stiftung, Crespo Foundation, Hans Erich und Marie Elfriede Dotter-Stiftung, Dr. Marschner Stiftung Marschner Stiftung, Stiftung Polytechnische Gesellschaft Frankfurt am Main
Within the framework of the Tanzplattform Rhein-Main, a project of the Künstler*innenhaus Mousonturm and the Hessian State Ballet, made possible by the Kulturfonds Frankfurt RheinMain; financed by the Cultural Office of the City of Frankfurt am Main; the Hessian Ministry of Science and Art and the Alliance of Foundations [Aventis Foundation, BHF BANK Foundation, Crespo Foundation, Hans Erich and Marie Elfriede Dotter Foundation, Dr. Marschner Foundation, Frankfurt Polytechnic Foundation]
With the support of Freunde und Förderer des Mousonturms e.V
With the support of the Goethe Institute in Beijing and Munich
With the support of the Drac Île-de-France / ministère de la Culture
The Théâtre de la Ville-Paris and the Festival d'Automne à Paris are coproducers of this show and present it in coproduction
Twenty-four years after Report of Giving Birth, the flagship piece which marked the debuts of her notoriety in France, Wen Hui opens a new chapter in her exploration of sate interventionism on the woman’s body. Drawing on dance and video testimonies, she delicately interweaves the political with the intimate.
The single child policy put in place by the Chinese government in 1979 is of course no longer an issue. However, with the onset of official discourses claiming that gender equality has last been reached, the question of the relationship between the institutional powers and the bodies of women remains intact. Since 2021, in China, the regime has been officially encouraging women to have three children, a situation which has lead to new discriminations in the workplace. In June 2022, in the United States, the Supreme Court rejected the right to abortion which had been established in 1973. Whether it is a matter of demographic crises or the defence of patriarchal values, it is the bodies of women that bear the brunt. Performed by four dancers from different origins and generations, the dance is written in collusion with the constant interplay between real-life accounts, and sound, text and visual-based documents, a field in which the Living Dance Studio has become an expert. Alternating between onstage present and archive footage or projections, the piece puts together a complex mosaic of situations whilst mapping out hypothetical avenues for resistance and liberation.
In the same place
Mohamed El Khatib La vie secrète des vieux
Mohamed El Khatib furthers his passion for documentary theatre by tackling a subject that he brings from out of the shadows, namely that of eroticism and the love lives of “oldies”. Put together in a daring yet tender way, his new piece explores this theme from the perspective of desire, thereby going against the usual connotations associated with old age.
Jérôme Combier, Alberto Posadas, Salvatore Sciarrino
The music of Jérôme Combier opens up the way we listen to the details of the world and their subtle mutations. Poetic, and punctuated by mysterious outbursts, his music celebrates a plasticity which in turn shapes its instrumental and electronic elements. Strands, his latest work, sets up relationships between the animal and plant worlds, weaving spider's web-like threads between.