"Black Lights" by Mathilde Monnier, extracts

Black Lights is based on texts written by ten female authors from around the world, used in the stunning television series H24. Inspired by actual events, this show-as-manifesto which chronicles the mental and physical impact of the different kinds of violence to which women are exposed. In a polyphony of movements and words, Mathilde Monnier lends her voice to those incisive and powerful texts. Like the writers themselves, the eight performers who embody those stories on stage come from different countries, belong to different generations. Aiming through her direction to evoke the tragedy of those stories but also the very possibility of expressing and sharing, the great choreographer with her long history with Avignon and its audience makes literature the source of her dance. And rather than mere illustration, the former director of the Centre chorégraphique de Montpellier and of the Centre national de la danse gives a face to those female words: commitment and freedom.