Ruth Childs

Ruth

Childs

Blast

Coproduction

2021/2022

As part of coproduction project

Blast! is a solo performance based on the study of human expressivity. While my previous creation fantasia conjured sensations and movements from my own memories, this new choreographic exploration attempts to map out, sketch, or embody other beings, with a focus on painful, strange, explosive, and violent physical experiences.

For some time now, I have felt the need to respond to violence by putting it in my body and transforming it through my artistic practices. Not my own violence, but the violence all around us, the one that permeates the history of humanity, haunts us with images and stories, the violence of our imagination, the violence of nightmares. In addition to a study on expressivity, two intuitive concepts are at the heart of this new project: one is musical and the other spatial. In contrast to the intensity of the movement, or maybe even as an antidote, these concepts will have a meditative, soothing quality. Sensorially, they will function as intuitions—evanescent formal presences, that can either contain the energy of the piece or release it.

— Ruth Childs

Premiere : August 27 to 31, 2022 at Pavillon de la Danse/ La Bâtie festival, Geneva

Casting

Choreography/Performance : Ruth Childs
Technical Direction and Light Design: Joana Oliveira
Sound Design : Stéphane Vecchione
Artistic collaboration : Bryan Campbell
Costumes : Coco Petitpierre
Outside eye : Cécile Bouffard
Coaching : Michèle Gurtner

Production : Scarlett’s

Delegated production, administration, Touring : Tutu Production – Lise Leclerc et Cécilia Lubrano

Coproduction :

Pavillon ADC, Geneva, La Bâtie Festival, Geneva, Arsenic Centre d’art scénique contemporain, Lausanne
Atelier de Paris/CDCN
CCN de Tours/ Thomas Lebrun (Residency)
Centre chorégraphique national de Rillieux-la-Pape/direction Yuval PICK
A-CDCN (Les Hivernales – CDCN d’Avignon, La Manufacture – CDCN Nouvelle-Aquitaine
Bordeaux · La Rochelle, L’échangeur – CDCN Hauts-de-France, Le Dancing CDCN Dijon
Bourgogne-Franche-Comté, Chorège CDCN, Le Pacifique – CDCN Grenoble – Auvergne -Rhône-Alpes, Touka Danses – CDCN Guyane, Atelier de Paris / CDCN, Le Gymnase CDCN Roubaix – Hauts-de-France, POLE-SUD CDCN / Strasbourg, La Place de la Danse – CDCN Toulouse / Occitanie, La Maison CDCN Uzès Gard Occitanie, La Briqueterie CDCN du Valde-Marne)

Residencies : Lo Studio – performing arts centre – Arbedo- Castione/Bellinzona – Suisse

With the support of : Pro Helvetia fondation Suisse pour la culture, de la fondation Stanley Thomas Johson