Jan Fabre is an artist who constantly questions the vitality of the human being and wonders about the place of art and the artist in our world. He explores, to its very limits, the artist's body, soul and visions. Inspired by art history, from the Flemish primitives to Marcel Duchamp, from the Greek theatre to Antonin Artaud, he expresses himself equally through drawing, sculpture, writing and drama in which theatre and dance are combined in the interpreters' bodies. A plastic artist, he is the author of a prolific and protean body of work: drawings, monochromes, sculptures, photographs, performances. He has invested a host of venuesnot the least of which the Louvre, which devoted a major exhibition to him this spring. For the last few years, his “base camp” has been the Troubleyn in Antwerp, his projects' creation centre.
On the stage, his shows, whether danced or acted, whether accompanied by music or texts (which he often writes himself), have compelled recognition for over 20 years as one of the most radical sources of the revival of contemporary theatre. They are stagings of the body and its excesses, appearances and their distortions, moods and their palpitations, that propose a plastic of saturation that can shock and fascinate, bring about adhesion or rejection. He likes to call his actors “warriors of beauty”, carried along to the excess of images and dreams. Jan Fabre, however, shows deep tenderness towards the human being and his weaknesses. From monologues (Elle était et elle est, même, Étant donnés [She Was and She Is, Even]) or intimate solos designed specifically for his interpreters (Quando l'uomo principale è una donna, L'Ange de la mort [Angel of Death]) to his flamboyant group pieces (recently, Requiem pour une métamorphose [Requiem for a Metamorphosis] premiered at the 2007 Salzburg Festival), Jan Fabre's approach retains a taste for childhood and its games.
Jan Fabre, who was associate artist of the 59th Festival in 2005, presented Das glas im kopf wird vom glas in 1988, My Movements Are Alone Like Street Dogs in 2000, Je suis sang (I Am Blood) and the plastic installation Umbraculum in 2001, L'Ange de la mort in 2004 and, in 2005, L'Histoire des larmes (History of Tears) and Je suis sang in the Cour d'honneur of the Popes' Palace, L'Empereur de la perte (The Emperor of Perdition) and Le Roi du plagiat as well as an exhibition at La Maison Jean Vilar, titled For intérieur (Inner Depths).
Three years after having been associate artist, Jan Fabre returns to the Festival with Another sleepy dusty delta day, a solo danced by Ivana Jozic, one of his muses, a dancer of Croatian origin, with whom the Flemish director has been working for several years, having already created L'Ange de la mort together in 2003. For this return, he proposes a work based on the great leap into the void, death, the afterlife. The title Another sleepy dusty delta day takes its inspiration from the hit song Ode to Billy Joe by Bobbie Gentry, written in 1967 about a young man who committed suicide by jumping off a bridge. The opening line of this rather mysterious country and western song is still the subject of speculation today. The show mixes autobiographical reminiscences, since it raises questions and looks back on the death of the artist's own mother, precise and intense choreographic work with Ivana Jozic and a text written by Jan Fabre celebrating the very act of jumping into the unknown and the dispersion of the body in matter as an eminently poetic undertaking. Jan Fabre wanted this type of withdrawal, leaving it up to Ivana Jozic to appear alone, embodying his writing and presence, whirling on the stage like a light but tragic spirit, born from the vision of a dying mother and the imagination of a man in love suddenly killing himself.
Distribution
chorégraphie: Jan Fabre, Ivana Jozic
conception, texte, scénographie: Jan Fabre
interprète: Ivana Jozic
inspiré par: Ode to Billie Joe (1967, Bobbie Gentry)
production déléguée: Troubleyn/Jan Fabre
Production
production: Troubleyn/Jan Fabre (Anvers)
en coproduction avec: Napoli Teatro Festival, Festival d'Avignon, Philadelphia Live Arts Festival, Zagreb Youth Theatre - Theatre Festival
avec le soutien: des autorités flamandes et de la Ville d'Anvers