Crowd

A patch of barely beaten earth covered with cans, papers and other debris. This is the kind of marginal space that our society here in the west uses to “party”, as they say, “to let go”. To lose or find oneself? Gisèle Vienne takes a serious look at this anonymous space,  allowing it to be peopled. Let the rave begin!

Since her debut, Gisèle Vienne has always been interested in the ways in which our contemporary cultures compose with more or less archaic powers or impulses. These are even more intense when they are socially “inconvenient”, when they arise at the frontier between the organic and psychic, in those decisive points identified by Georges Bataille – death, eroticism, violence – where life is confronted by its limits. Historically, these were typically taken in charge, channelled, by religious rituals, such as the sacrifice or the shamanic trance. Today, it is done through artistic languages reinvented by each successive generation (punk, rap, house...), who work to make possible what the psychologist Bernard Rimé – another important reference in the reflection of the choreographer – calls “the social sharing of emotions”. Crowd presents this sharing with remarkable acuity, and confirms a major turning point in the work of Gisèle Vienne. For the second time after The Ventriloquists Convention (2013), she dives into the intimacy within the space of a group. The interactions between the 15 individuals embarked on this “great emotional circuit” allow the reading of at least as many secret or exposed micro-histories, orchestrated in complicity with the writer Dennis Cooper. Traits that escape or deliberate signs, collective culmination, and shards of singularities weave a fascinating infra-text – up to us to catch it in flight – paced by a soundtrack from Peter Rehberg and by the quasi-cinematic editing of “retouched movements” by Gisèle Vienne . A slowed down traversal of accelerations and halting gestures, Crowd is constantly travelling and guiding our eyes from the detail to the bigger picture, from the real to the fantastic, vertiginously altering the course of time itself.  

Projet partagé avec Le Dancing CDCN Dijon Bourgogne-Franche-Comté, Art Danse 2022 festival

Conception, choreography & sets Gisèle Vienne
With the assistance of Anja Röttgerkamp & Nuria Guiu Sagarra

Music Underground Resistance, KTL, Vapour Space, DJ Rolando, Drexciya, The Martian, Choice, Jeff Mills, Peter Rehberg, Manuel Göttsching, Sun Electric et Global Communication
Montage & music selection Peter Rehberg
Sound diffusion Stephen O’Malley
Sound engineer Adrien Michel
Lights Patrick Riou
Dramaturgie Gisèle Vienne et Dennis Cooper

With Philip Berlin, Marine Chesnais, Sylvain Decloitre, Sophie Demeyer, Vincent Dupuy, Massimo Fusco, Rehin Hollant, Oskar Landström, Theo Livesey, Louise Perming, Katia Petrowick, Jonathan Schatz, Henrietta Wallberg & Tyra Wigg (in alternance: Lucas Bassereau, Nuria Guiu Sagarra, Georges Labbat & Linn Ragnarsson)

Production & tours Alma Office Anne-Lise Gobin, Alix Sarrade, Camille Queval & Andrea Kerr // Administration Etienne Hunsinger & Giovanna Rua
Production DACM