Performance

11.02.21
-
14.02.21
Festival Antigel – ADC
BAD
11.02.21
-
14.02.21
Festival Antigel – ADC
BAD

    [CANCELED] BA-Dance · Promo D : Graduation show by Mathilde Monnier

    Class D students of the Bachelor in Contemporary Dance present their graduation show, created by French choreographer Mathilde Monnier.

    They were to be hosted in residence for 5 weeks at the Mercat de les flors in Barcelona, with a premiere on the stage of the Spanish institution, and then leave for a tour of nine performances in Switzerland and France.

    Given the exceptional situation related to COVID-19, the creation of the show took place largely online, supplemented by a short period of work at La Manufacture. The original performance dates were cancelled and replaced by a short presentation time at La Manufacture.  

    Finally, it is with great joy that we can announce that with the support of the Antigel Festival and the ADC, the students will be able to present the piece to the public for the first time: 

    From February 11 to 14, 2021 at the Salle des Eaux-Vives

    As part of the Antigel Festival, with the support of the ADC


    ***

    The piece

    French choreographer Mathilde Monnier presents a piece entitled A Dance Climax, which plays with apnea and the breath of dance. She draws the students into a common breath to protect the future, in an attempt to make the invisible visible. 

    "This is a research project on air: who owns the air, usually considered as a free space and common good? We started to write a choreography on this question of breathing as a common good. I gave them a lot of texts to read, including those of Peter Sloterdijk on foam and greenhouse effects. He talks about the architects of the air and how the air became a space for exploitation. He uses also other books about the First World War, when air became a weapon with the use of gases. Today, with the coronavirus, it is no longer just a matter of air, but also touch, proximity. This concerns very important symptoms of our society. This disease affects something very intimate to us and in our relationship to each other." 

    The world of tomorrow: Interview with Mathilde Monnier
    Les Inrockuptibles, 04.02.2020 

    *** 

    The creation process

    "In mid-March the nine graduating students of the class D had just started the final stretch towards the end of their studies, the creation of the graduation show – consisting of two pieces choreographed by Mathilde Monnier and Salva Sanchis – when the Covid-19 pandemic forced them to continue working online for two and a half months. The artistic residency in Barcelona and the tour that would have taken them from Lausanne to Paris, and then to Geneva and Zurich were cancelled. 

    When the school reopened on June 8, buoyed by the excitement of the deconfinement, Mathilde Monnier and the students were finally able to create a piece based on the materials developed in their bedrooms, corridors and gardens. Extraordinary not only by its genesis, it highlights the astonishing complicity of a group intimately bonded by three years of common experiences, as well as the pronounced singularity of each individual, which was particularly solicited by the time of autonomous research in confinement. 

    The happy end will be completed in February when the graduates will reunite to present the piece in professional conditions at the invitation of the ADC and the Antigel festival, at the Salle des Eaux-Vives in Geneva." 

    Thomas Hauert
    Artistic Head of the Bachelor in Contemporary Dance

    Credits

    Choreography
    Mathilde Monnier

    With class D students from the Bachelor in Contemporary Dance:
    Zacharie Bordier, Hortense de Boursetty, Colline Cabanis, Queenie Fernandes, Milo Gravat, Délia Krayenbuhl, Gabriel Obergfell, Ludovico Paladini, Fabio Zoppelli

    Assistant choreographer
    Simon Wehrli

    Technique
    Ian Lecoultre, Céline Ribeiro

    Production
    La Manufacture, Haute école des arts de la scène

    Events