Growing piece

  • Show
  • Dance

Madeleine Fournier

France / Created in 2025

Starting with the Greek myth of the Heliades, Madeleine Fournier explores the life and death cycles of plants in a sensual and poetic gesture.

Growing Piece, Madeleine Fournier © Patrick Berger

Presentation

Daughters of sun-god Helios and sisters of Phaethon, the Heliades are disconsolate after their brothers’ death, and end up turning into poplars. Madeleine Fournier offers an interpretation of this myth where the metamorphosis is seen at once like a death unto oneself and a continuation of life in a new, radically different form. She creates a dance inspired by the movements of plants and the earthly powers that both constrain and allow its existence: fixity, gravity, light. Bagpipes music, performed live by musician Julien Desailly, amplifies the affective dimension of this transformation: sadness, despair, or maybe joy? Madeleine Fournier unfolds a form which alternates between poetry and humour to tell the nearly motionless epic of a plant trying to uproot itself to rediscover its lust for life.

그리스 신화 속 헬리아데스(Héliades) 이야기에서 출발하여, 마들렌 푸르니에는 식물의 삶과 죽음의 사이클을 관능적이고 시적인 몸짓으로 탐구한다. 

Distribution

With Madeleine Fournier 
And Julien Desailly 

Choregraphy Madeleine Fournier 
Music Julien Desailly  
Scenography creation  Andrea Baglione  
Lighting Andréa Baglione, Nicolas Marie 
Choregraphy assistant Jérôme Andrieu 
Costume Lou Thonet 
Outside perspective Sonia Garcia, Ruth Childs, Catherine Hershey, Anne Lenglet 
General management Jeanne Laffargue 
Sound engineering Vincent Domenet  
Administration, Production and Distribution bureau Retors Particulier  
Production Chloé Béasse 
Administration Nolwenn Mornet 
Development Margot Quénéhervé 

Production

Production ODETTA 
Co-production La place de la danse CDCN de Toulouse, La Manufacture CDCN Nouvelle-Aquitaine Bordeaux et La Rochelle, L’Atelier de Paris CDCN, Le Pacifique CDCN Grenoble Aura 
Coproduced Festival d’Avignon, Les Hivernales CDCN d’Avignon   

With de support of L’Essieu du Batut (Murols), le CN D Pantin, Honolulu Nantes, Théâtre de la Bastille (Paris) 
Artist residencies La Pop (Paris) 
The ODETTA company is supported by the Île-de-France Regional Directorate for Cultural Affairs.
This project was funded by the Île-de-France Region.

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