What

Intensely playful and liberating, WaW explores, in tandem with the eleven dancers who performed Anima Ardens, what it could mean for men who are proud of their masculinity to strike out and discover the feminine in themselves.

 

Who better than a rampaging, belligerent, and fairly foul-mouthed soccer team in the changing room after a victorious bout on the pitch to give the measure of such a testosterone-laden environment? The retort is immediately snide and obvious; and so it is with the soccer atmosphere and in such a changing room that this research begins, on and with individuals who are in essence and stereotypically reluctant to display the faintest emotion or gesture that could in the slightest way be associated with femininity. They sing with thunderous, low voices; they dance short, basic and well-paced sequences, they undress and it is here with their naked bodies that the men begin to parody anything that could be considered as modesty, camaraderie, or connivance of the other sex. Initially, they play at being them; they then ridicule them, experience them, and finally wallow and lose themselves in them… with glee.

Nowadays, numerous researchers are focusing on gender studies in order to decipher what some consider as a contemporary phenomenon (but is this really so?), namely, the appearance of blurred identities, the shifts from feminine to masculine or vice versa, sex changes and other gender-related soul-searching. It is in this spirit that WaW undertakes to captivate audiences with artists, masculine in a caricatured way, who question what could be interesting about recognizing the other in oneself. As well as a heightened dynamism and vitality, humour is ever-present, as are tenderness and a genuine interest in what it means to be a woman’s body, promptly revealed through interplaying movements and attitudes, by trying out clothes or applying make-up. This continues right up to the finale, which is transformed into a great witches’ sabbath reminiscent of those persecutions of which women were victims––and meant to better subjugate them.

Dates

Intensely playful and liberating, WaW explores, in tandem with the eleven dancers who performed Anima Ardens, what it could mean for men who are proud of their masculinity to strike out and discover the feminine in themselves.

 

DATE CONTENU
2018/05/29 29.05 > 16.06.2018 Théâtre Varia Brussels
2019/03/12 12 > 23.03.2019 Studio Thor Brussels
2019/04/06 06.04.2019 Charleroi Danse Brussels

Distribution

— Chorégraphie, direction artistique

Thierry Smits

— Dramaturgie, collaboration artistique

Antoine Pickels

— Assistants chorégraphe

Vincenzo Carta, Ellie Tass

— Danseurs

Linton Aberle, Ruben Brown, Davide Guarino, Michal Adam Góral, Gustavo Monteiro, Oskari Nyyssölä, Emeric Rabot, Nelson Reguera Perez, Eduard Turull, Duarte Valadares, Paolo Yao

— Création musicale

Nikolas Klau avec Loreto Zamora

— Costumes

Silvia Hasenclever

— Réalisation costumes

Odile Dubucq, Bert Menzel, Hortense Toussaint, Camille de Sancy

 

— Création lumière

Nicolas Simonin

— Régie Lumière

Bruno Gilbert

— Régie Son

Jean-François Lejeune

— Régie plateau

Brahim Sahli

— Production

Fabien Defendini, Karim Mohdhi

— Diffusion

Juliette Buffard Scalabre (Derviche Diffusion)

— Attachées de presse

Astrid Dubié, Séverine Provost (Be Culture)

 

— Remerciements à

Peter Savel, Simon Siegmann, Peter Maschke

— Consultant.e.s

Véronique Danneels, historienne de l’art, Laura Tecco, Caroline Gounongbé et Samantha Blaiberg, obstétriciennes-gynécoloques, et David Paternotte, sociologue

— Professeur.e.s

Nora Alberdi, Laida Aldaz, Douglas Beker, Marta Coronado, Tomas Danielis, Maria Ferreira Silva, Tamara Gvozdenovic, José Luis Londono, Isaël Mata Rojas Cruz, Meri Pajunpaa

— Intervenants rencontre 6 juin

Aurélie Aromatorio, David Berliner, Sébastien Chauvin, Meriam Cheikh, Tommy De Ganck, Irene Zeilinger

— En coproduction avec

la COOP Asbl, le Théâtre Varia, et Charleroi Danse.

— Avec le soutien de

Shelter Production, Taxshelter.be, ING et du taxshelter du gouvernement fédéral belge

 

Videos

WaW [We are Woman] - Trailer