Trained as a puppeteer at the Ecole Supérieure Nationale des Arts de la Marionette, Gisèle Vienne set out on her own in 2000. From the outset, working with Etienne Bideau-Rey, her stage work has involved puppets, dolls, mannequins and masques, which she uses in her exploration of this troubled universe where eroticism is a central issue. At the heart of her research is an examination of the notion of performance between reality and fantasy, questioning the rapport between bodies, the animate and artificiality. After Splendid's (2000), a play written by Jean Genet, ShowRoomDummies (2001) that falls somewhere between robotic coldness and glamourous sensuality, Stéréotypie (2003) where the image of bodies treated like icons develops in the emptiness left between reality and desire and Tranen Veinzen (2004) on exposure, she has continued her research with other artists. With Dennis Cooper, an American art critic and writer - whose iconoclastic work is about breaking-in and violence, both from a corporal point of view as from a literary point of view – she stages her two new plays while he writes the texts and works on the dramaturgy. Gisèle Vienne's productions are like suggestive objects where metaphorical images of violence and eroticism become rituals of the stage performance.
In this play, three performers perform double roles. Catherine Robbe-Grillet also known under her pen-name, Jean(ne) de Berg for her erotic writings, is on stage with Anja Rötterkamp, a dancer who is dogged by strange sounds, and Jonathan Capdevielle, an actor who is investigating his death. The actress improvises Dennis Cooper's autobiographical text. As the words are uttered, his character seems to become two, following two paths, outlining two destinies, his and that of the author. Reality or fiction, pleasure or obsession, they each bring their own obsession to the stage. As if so many subjects in love were subjected to the sovereign test of desires. Like a mirror to I Apologize, this creation develops a radically different aesthetic. Not a single situation suggesting an exaltation of adolescence, rather all the signs of maturity. A peaceful setting, with refined design which nonetheless allows a subterranean violence filter through. Gestures beckon to available bodies and objects. A dozen dolls in poses of boredom, insolent or waiting, and a play on music, visual composition, texts and movements. The point is to mine, to blow apart the linearity of the tale and to rebond with Gisèle Vienne's favourite subject, eroticism, as the experience of the body as indistinct from the world.
Distribution
Conception : Gisèle Vienne
Texts : Dennis Cooper, Catherine Robbe-Grillet
Created in collaboration with and performed by : Jonathan Capdevielle, Catherine Robbe-Grillet, Anja Röttgerkamp
Music : Peter Rehberg
lighting : Patrick Riou
Costumes : Simone Hoffmann
Make-up : Rebecca Flores
Creation of the dolls : Raphaël Rubbens, Dorothéa Vienne-Pollak, Gisèle Vienne
Texts traduced from American : by Laurence Viallet
Production
en compagnie: de l'Adami
Coproduction : Festival d'Avignon, Bonlieu – Scène nationale d'Annecy, Emilia Romagna Teatro Fondazione (Modène), Centre chorégraphique national de Franche-Comté (Belfort) Dans le cadre : de l'accueil Studio, centre national de la danse / prêt de studio
Cette création a bénéficié d'une résidence : aux Subsistances à Lyon 2004-2005
Avec le soutien : du ministère de la Culture et de la Communication/ Drac Rhône-Alpes, de la région Rhône-Alpes, du Conseil général de l'Isère et de la ville de Grenoble
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