au bleu cochon
pictures by Christian Glaus | Luca Pillonel
artistic direction and choreography Béatrice Jaccard, Peter Schelling dance and choreographic collaboration Thomas Maucher, Mónica Muñoz Marín, Judith Rohrbach, József Trefeli, Marco Volta, Viacheslav Zoubkov dramaturgy Béatrice Jaccard music François Gendre, Massimo Bertinelli video Jaccard/ Schelling with company and Budlana Baldanova set Peter Schelling, Ronald Dörfler light design François Gendre costumes Daphné Ineichen mask Sylvia Tommasi production management Beatrice Rossi
PREMIERE 2008 April 2nd, Nuithonie – Fribourg (ch)
A co-production of company drift with Nuithonie – Fribourg, Tanzhaus Zürich, Theater Roxy Basel and Internationale Tanzwoche Dresden
Performances
Nuithonie, Fribourg (ch), Théâtre la Fourmi, Lucerne (ch), Intern. Tanzwoche Dresden (d), Tanzhaus Zurich (ch), Theater Roxy Basle (ch), Tanec Praha, Prague and Ostrava (cz), XVI Annual Intern. Dance Conference and Performance Festival, Bytom (pl), Radialsysten, Berlin (d), Kumu auditooriumis, Taliinn; Vanemuine Sadamateater, Tartu (est), Intern. Dance Theatres Festival, Lublin and Chelm (pl)
‚au bleu cochon’ is a bar with a glitter curtain, a TV incessantly showing two soccer-playing rabbits, an igloo covered with fur and lighting that becomes more garish and colorful as the piece continues.
Here absurdities of daily life and human (over)reactions are unveiled as an expression of animalistic drives. Greed, escapism and battles send man’s bella figura into a tailspin and force the most normal behavior to the limits of reason.
Every once in a while a woman crawls into the igloo as though the world were an icy planet and completely lost.
‚au bleu cochon’ reminds us that man is a pitiful animal and the world a zoo of lost souls.
Folly lurks behind inconspicuous situations.
Every moment is infused with the potential for the unexpected. Playful moments suddenly mix with dreadful ones, loneliness with chumminess. Weird birds demonstrate bizarre mating behavior.
The characters are half human, half animal. They are human animals whose hybrid nature is written on their lapels and who conform to no psychological role models. Human beasts whose hybrid characteristics are labeled on their lapels….
Hyperfast, energy-laden, nervous impulses lead to complex chain reactions. The protagonists get caught in them as in a spider web.
It is a dance between cautious approaches and fights.
The layer over the void is wafer-thin. Only with not too heavy hearts and light limbs do we move on it without danger.
Press excerpts
Breaking of the Neck as an Art Form
‚...The audience is witnessing a spectacle of nature: strange beings – let’s call them humans – engage determinedly in courtship. They compare hands, legs and size. They get tangled up, put themselves into knots, whirl and spin and nestle up against each other – and these are only the males. As soon as the females come into play everything gets much more complicated...Sheer lunacy- but maybe just the natural course of the world... The cynical and bold scenes and images are well choreographed and linger on in your mind...’ Thurgauer Zeitung, Switzerland 13.12.08
Bizarre Mating Behavior
…A furry igloo bulges up right next to the bar; its interior glows with a desire for contact… Body parts get tied up in an inextricable manner, whereby it is never quite clear what should be seen as rough competitive infighting or friendly jostling… The investigation of interpersonal relationships is Compagnie Drift’s specialty… Jaccard and Schelling win us over with bizarre scenes between narrative and abstraction… In ‚au bleu cochon’ they demonstrate how folly can lurk behind inconspicuous situations… It is a series of images in which irritating and humorous moments coexist side by side. Movements from daily life almost always include a point of departure for the unexpected. Playful moments suddenly mix with dreadful ones, loneliness with chumminess.
Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Zurich, 09.05.08
At Night at the Bar
…new, original movement material… distinctive… has its own, strong signature… After this amusing piece, that is once again convincing in the usual “Drift” manner, one will never again stand at a bar without precisely observing the other guests. Wasn’t that just a little tick? Wasn’t that just an animalistic moment that shimmered through the surface?… mz, 16.05.08
A Dance between Cautious Approaches and Fights
…A few lost souls stand around, shy and stiff. They search for one another, test how body parts match and push limbs against others… and often enough go over the top. Soon cautious approaches quickly become choke-holds or even fights. Bodies get so tangled up that they can hardly be separated. Abstruse situations… dancers full of expression… great characters that are especially convincing in duos… Tages Anzeiger (Zurich review), 08.05.08
Clownish Human Animals
…The bizarre images of movement are finely sketched, the interaction between the bizarre characters appears exceptional…
Strange mixed beings… The human side gives the driving will to meet up, exchange, communicate and explain along with all possible inhibitions and timidity. The animal side demonstrates unquestioned drive, instinctual patterns of movement and involuntary reactions. They… want to influence the others, but then evade them shyly or are ashamed while simultaneously surging ahead without reservation and falling into accelerating chain reactions, all while demonstrating a self-confident, calm security in the wildest interchanges… Der Landbote, 08.05.08
Weird Birds
…With subtlety and much poetic skill they unveil the absurdities of daily life and human (over)reactions as an expression of animalistic drives. Greed, escapism and battles send man’s bella figura into a tailspin and force the most normal behavior to the limits of reason. Movement sequences are interrupted again and again by uncontrollable impulses that tousle them to the point of being unrecognizable. It is funny, but also a bit sad, because ‚au bleu cochon’ reminds us that man is a pitiful animal and the world a zoo of lost souls… Tages Anzeiger (Luzern review), 30.04.08
Fusions – Entanglements – Convolutions
…The Swiss company Drift constantly surprises, and do so with excellent dancers… six hand-picked types… What this company offers us in fusions, entanglements and convolutions in an amusing hour is simply well worth seeing. Choreographic ideas effervesce with ease…
Dresdner Neueste Nachrichten, 29.04.08
In the Blue Pig Bar
…A highlight of this year’s Tanzwoche… lustfully played-out misunderstandings with a dreamy touch… Jaccard/ Schelling invented ‚au bleu cochon’ as an acrobatic foldaway machine of half-intended events… It seems bizarre, but it is precisely identified…
Sächsische Zeitung, Dresden, 28.04.08
„Drift unveils our obsessions with a simple sleight of hand“
A piece in which levity competes with acumen and precision with relevance
„… in an extremely kitschy bar Drift plays with a decisively light tone in front of a deeper and more multi-layered background than it seemed at the outset… The choreography works above all with impulses… but in a hyper-fast and energy-driven nervous rhythm… in masterly and precisely completed complex chain reactions in which all six dancers have their own individual score… you say to yourself that everything must be superficial in this absurd stage set with its shiny curtain, a TV that is always on, an igloo covered with fur and lighting that only gets more gaudy and colorful over time. But the body can’t be covered and hidden by anything. The animalistic and untamable elements can’t be concealed… Compagnie Drift exposes duets of love as well as scenes from daily life; you identify yourself as though you were looking at a distorted mirror. Drift researches intuitive and bodily components within the origins of human relationships. This is done with a unique style in which levity competes with acumen and precision with relevance…” La Liberté, 04.04.08
‚au bleu cochon’
„…links and entanglements within a closed social circle… The Compagnie Drift once again manages to embed deep psychological insights into a bizarre ambience so that, eased by their humour, we are willing to swallow them whole… and gladly take more…“ ensuite, Kulturmagazin, 08.04.08
With the kind support of:
Kulturförderung der Stadt Zürich, Fachstelle Kultur Kanton Zürich, Pro Helvetia – Schweizer Kulturstiftung, Kanton Freiburg – Kulturförderung, Kulturelles.bl , Migros-Kulturprozent, Sophie und Karl Binding Stiftung, Kulturstiftung Winterthur