This piece for four performers by the emphatically European artist Marie Gourdain and the German Felix Baumann blends contemporary dance with physical theatre, and unfolds around the scenography. The principle is both simple and complex: on an unstable platform, have bodies be in constant motion, their flow of movements conditioning how they approach the space. This intensely physical confrontation between performers and materials gives rise to a sometimes absurd dramaturgical situation, which yields a distinctive gestural vocabulary.
Seismic is programmed as part of Plateforme 2023.
Marie Gourdain
Marie Gourdain first studied and worked in the cinema before becoming a choreographer, scenographer and visual artist. She has mainly worked in Prague since 2010, while also taking part in projects elsewhere in Europe. Her output combines her visual arts training and contemporary dance, using graphic and sculptural composition tools and a detailed analysis of movement to create complex choreographies – at the intersection of a strongly formal approach to the body, a mixture of types of expressiveness and presence, and in-depth work on manipulating stage props, while also leaving plenty of room for intuition, improvisation and laughter.
Felix Baumann
Felix Baumann has worked as a dance and theatre performer for companies and organisations in various countries. In parallel, he has developed his personal artistic research and practice, geared to developing his own brand of theatrical movement and language in which disciplines such as physical theatre, dance, visual theatre, scenography and clowning overlap. He has always focused on an interdisciplinary and experimental approach, aimed at devising an original tragicomic language, using the active body as a tool to render visible its own absurdity. He has founded his own company, Von B bis Z, based in Baden-Wurtemberg, southwest Germany.
2022 / creation for 4 dancers
Concept: Marie Gourdain, Felix Baumann
Choregraphy & stage direction: Marie Gourdain, Felix Baumann
Performers: Felix Baumann, Sean Henderson, Till Jenewein, Halka Třešňáková
In collaboration with Johana Pocková
Dramaturgy consultant: Jakub Režný
Light design: Zuzana Režná
Music design: Thibault Cohade
Music assistant: Lukáš Palán
Costumes design: Magdalena Vrabová
Stage design: Jan Tomšů with Marie Gourdain et Felix Baumann
Production: Matière Mobile, tYhle, Von B bis Z
Production consultant: Bureau STP, Ludmila Šindlerová, Claudia Teichmann
Consultant de production : Dirk Förster
Coproduction: PONEC – dance venue, LOFFT – DAS THEATER Leipzig, Les SUBS Lyon, CCNR/Yuval Pick
Other partners: Studio ALTA, Schloss Bröllin, MS Schrittmacher
The project was co-financed by: the DRAC Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes – Aide à la création, l’Institut français and the Métropole de Lyon, the ville de Lyon, the Spedidam, the ministère de la Culture de République Tchèque, the Fonds culturel national (SFK), the Fonds pour l’avenir tchéco-allemand (ČNFB), the municipality of Prague (MHMP) and the city of Brno, le Fonds de coproduction pour la danse NATIONALES PERFORMANCE NETZ (DE), which is funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and Media and the City of Leipzig – cultural office
Lenght: 50 min
Photo © Brtnický