Valerio Porleri für TanzLOBBY IG Tanz Zürich
Tuesday, November 29th, 20:00, Tanzhaus Zurich
Choreografie, Komposition, Text und Inszenierung: Eugénie Rebetez
Kreation und Spiel: Plume Ducret, Michael Fehr, Marthe Krummenacher, Naïla Vasarino, Leslie Philbert, Eugénie Rebetez
Tanznachtisch Moderation: Tina Mantel
Text: Valerio Porleri
A semi-transparent grey-green cloth hangs from the ceiling and splits the back half from the front half of the stage. The audience is complete, and silence rises as the lights fade. Then black-out. Eugénie steps out of the cloth wearing a pink skirt with a long train and a black t-shirt to combine the elegance of a princess with the simplicity of everyday life. She softly moves her arms, making delicate, sensual movements. The first contrast to the softness of her movements is the sound of her voice, reminding of a mountain echo. The same sound provokes (or is it maybe the other way around?) a sharper movement, then another, and then another. The image slowly evolves and transforms to reach the apex as it looks like a young adolescent is emulating the moves of her favourite pop star in front of a mirror. Sometimes the audience produces little audible laughs because of the hilarity of the combination movements-voice. Suddenly Eugénie runs behind the cloth.
One of the technicians of the Tanzhaus comes on stage and lets the massive cloth fall. Light on. We see five persons on stage: one man sitting on a chair and close to a clothes stand with wheels, one woman standing on a stair slightly shifted from the centre of the stage, one woman standing on a wooden pallet, Eugénie sitting at an upright piano and a woman sitting on top of the same piano. On stage, two curtains of different sizes are hanging from the ceiling, and a structure, reminding of a big white screen, stands on the right side of the stage. Through a veiled red thread, one scene leads to the next to present a succession of images or “meetings” as the performance description defines them. One of them particularly caught the public, according to the feedback round during the Tanznachtisch, as it provoked a profound reflection on stereotypes in dance. Eugénie’s generous curves, as one woman defines, are offered to a tiny and slim dancer (Marthe Krummenacher) to be climbed up. What kind of bodies are we used to looking at in a dance performance? Is it so important in dance to have a slim body?
Another relevant image described the dreams of a young woman to become a ballet dancer. Eugénie talks to somebody (Naïla Vasarino) standing behind one of the curtains hanging. The voice sounds like the one of a young woman. Then Eugénie pulls the curtains at the side and uncovers the young woman practising ballet: a grand plie with a “port de bras”. The young woman then takes a big object, carries it to the front stage, and gives it to Eugénie, who puts it on the floor. She starts to unroll a gold-coloured carpet in such a way as to create a diagonal on stage. Once Eugénie plays the piano, the young woman starts to execute ballet moves along the carpet, wholly absorbed and amazed by what she is doing. She lets herself go as well, as she starts humming the music played by the pianist.
The moment Eugénie turns to the person sitting in public in the first row caught especially attention; Eugénie talks to her gently, get closer softly, and offers a warm, inviting smile. She shows her hand to the woman, who folds her jacket and follows Eugénie on stage, becoming part of the performance. So that dance is coming closer to the spectators. The resulting energy, created through this situation, produced a relaxing atmosphere. This kind of atmosphere, enhanced by bringing the movement to the minimum, allowed humankind’s fragility to reach the public.
It looks like a “Rendezvous”, a meeting, the end of the performance. Five persons, standing around the piano that has been moved to the middle front of the stage. Eugénie playing one of her compositions that accompanied the public the whole evening. Despite the provocative pictures, some spectators during the feedback round shared an impression of unclarity concerning the performance. Some did not perceive it as disturbing as they appreciated the non-linear order of the events. In conclusion, everybody agreed on defining Eugénie’s energy as warm, generous, and embracing, which allowed everybody to feel welcome. “The performance was warm, welcoming, fragile.”