Especially for the Cour d'honneur at the Festival d'Avignon, Jan Fabre wrote a long dramatic poem on the theme of blood. It is a visionary text where, one day in the future, the human body will be liquid, fluid, made of blood only. When this metamorphosis occurs, the colour of the planet will change, it will become red, another way of life will begin. All the beliefs attached to blood, Christ's blood, bad blood etc. will disappear. The repertoire of essential feelings will be entirely different. Then, the Middle Ages will be over. Because, humanity today has yet to undergo a revolution to tear it from the darkness of the Middle Age. Voices in the night sketch images of Man in the past, the present and the future. They evoke the burden that is the body, that is prey to obsessions, fixations, suffering and illness. The body is the source of passions and, at the same time, social taboos that precisely relate to blood such as wounds, menstruation, stigmata; all "effusions of blood". The human condition has, over time preserved the same physical laws and the same fears. Man is addicted to blood, in all senses. The verses develop like mantras: an idea, repeated and slowly expanded. The voices express the desire to become solely blood. As if trying to ward off some evil, he puts the notion of flesh and bones to one side, so that they can change into some other form, free from pain and fault, into a liquid that penetrates matter. Human beings and animals occupy the space, the performance expands in the amplitude of the Cour. It is an intense production, bathed in a red shadow. "I am freeing myself from myself", says a voice in the last moments of the play. Has the human overcome good and evil ? Is it now invulnerable ? Jan Fabre wrote this fresco in French and in Latin. It seems to adopt the aesthetic of the Middle Ages, but in fact it explodes it in a prophetic language, a ritual action in electrified gesture and stage setting that is somewhere between heaven and earth. The forms and themes dear to this artist who is a poet, director, choreographer and visual artist resound in this show. For example, we can see traces of the choreographer of As Long As The World Needs a Warrior Soul, as well as the painter and the sculptor (who actually made a series of drawings in his own blood.) However, they are placed in this other dimension that demands a symbiosis with the architecture and the history of the palace in Avignon. It is a new step in the passion of the "warrior of beauty". Created especially for the stage in the Palais des papes, Je suis sang (conte de fées médiéval) (I Am Blood, a Mediaeval Fairy Tale) will be performed exclusively in Avignon, four times only.
(Text co-written by Hendrik Tratsaert)
Distribution
written, directed, stage design and choreography by :Jan Fabre
assistant director and assistant playwright : Miet Martens
with : Tamara Beudeker, Cédric Charron, Anny Czupper, Els Deceukelier, Lisbeth Gruwez, Erna Omarsdottir, Apostolia Papadamaki, Dirk Roofthooft, Maarten Van Cauwenberghe, Jurgen Verheyen (actors, dancers, musicians)
costumes : Daphne Kitschen
lighting : Jan Dekeyser, Sven Van Kuijk
production managers : Hilde Vanhoutte, Mark Geurden
technical director : Dré Schneider
Production
Production : Troubleyn (Anvers), Festival d'Avignon et deSingel (Anvers)
En collaboration avec : Muziektheater Transparant.
Jan Fabre est « artiste en résidence » à : deSingel (Anvers)
Avec le soutien de : la Communauté flamande et de la Loterie nationale
Les textes de Jan Fabre sont édités par L'Arche Paris.