Festival - Free admission
- A Non-French-speaking friendly
A snapshot of new contemporary art aesthetics, a platform for risk-taking without the limits of genre, theme or artistic current : Les Urbaines is back. This year, the festival — a laboratory for emerging artists and a hotbed of entirely free discoveries — will be showcasing more than forty projects in a renewed configuration (Arsenic, Théâtre Sévelin 36, Espace Arlaud, Bourg, Romandie as well as new venues).
LES PANTHÈRES NÉBULEUSES (FR)
ALEX BACZYNSKI-JENKINS (UK/PL)
Durational Performance 21:00-24:00
In a minimalist environment, Alex Baczynski-Jenkins stages a constellation of performers on rollerblades who loop for hours, reciting and reformulating fragments of poetry relating to desire. The different extracts are picked up polyphonically by the skaters, thus circulating in the space, tirelessly modified by the direction of the performers’ movements and affects. A gentle current that establishes a languorous dialogue between attraction and repetition.
TYPHONIAN HIGHLIFE (US)
Typhonian Highlife is one of the many aliases of the musician Spencer Clark. Under the guise of this moniker, he crafts a disconcerting ecosystem of fantasised mythology and romantic anticipation, creating a style inspired by heroic fantasy which he names “Demon Classical Aquatic Fusion”. Armed with his two synthesisers and a madcap, humorous and virtuosic stage presence, he performs the perfect soundtrack to immerse oneself in a long psychedelic voyage; a sort of magic ritual invoking Cthulhu, while evoking erotic visions worthy of a HR Giger painting.
JEREMY NEDD (CH/US)
Inspired by experiences of mourning, celebration and protest—three situations that give rise to gatherings—the Swiss-American performer and choreographer Jeremy Nedd invites us to a collective experience with an oxymoronic name: Communal Solo. Invoking a backdrop of images that refer to the recurrent violence against the African-American community in the United States, Nedd counterbalances the seriousness of the theme with his warm and relaxed presence, accompanied by a festive atmosphere and a toe-tapping playlist. An open and constructive act which is essential in this day and age.
The best piece of this season
House lights, no set, one person on stage (at once author, ac tor and himself): Johannes Dullin has given himself one night to write the best piece of the season. In a gleeful back and forth between the moment of composition and the “here and now” of the performance, Dullin leads us through both sides of the theatrical creative process with a forceful grip. A theatrical success — necessarily unparalleled — that takes us to the outer reaches of the cosmos.
MARC PHILIPP GABRIEL & MAIJA KARHUNEN (DE/FI)
Marc Philipp Gabriel and Maija Karhunen studied choreography together in Berlin. The character they have created for AJIMA — a performance that spans a wellness tutorial, a cosmic freakshow and the art of divination — plays on our projections based on physical appearance and a supposed identity. A fascinating and unsettling collective ritual.
POUSSY DRAAMA (FR)
Conversation en cercle autour du selfhelp avec Poussy DRAAMA
In 2015, the artist-performer Poussy DRAAMA created the colourful character of DocteurE Duchesne: an itinerant alter gynecologist who officiates in an old fire truck, the “Trans Utérus Cruising Agency”. Realising the extent of questions relating to gynecology and the sexual health of women, trans and non-binary individuals, she turned towards an artistic practice that is now closer to selfhelp than performance. Whether it’s a lecture or a workshop, this is an open occasion for all subjectivities to learn and share, without judgment or discrimination.
GEO WYETH (US)
In Juice CrosxxxSing, the multidisciplinary artist Geo Wyeth, whose work spans mediums including music, performance, installation and video, embodies two enigmatic characters: the Lost Tourist and the Crossing Guard who move across hurdles, merging in bass. Children’s voices permeate a black box. Dutch weather requires raingear. A target becomes a stop sign.
- A Non-French-speaking friendly