Cuando l’uomo principale è una donna

source: css-teatro

Quando l’uomo principale è una donna è il più recente di un’eccezionale serie di assoli di danza creati da Jan Fabre. Al centro della piéce, l’eterna tensione tra maschile e femminile e una riflessione semplice ma non scontata: il fatto che, sino al momento della nascita, ogni uomo è parte di una donna. Quando l’uomo principale è una donna non è altro che un’ode alla forza e alla potenza delle donne, un assolo imbevuto di una straordinaria leggerezza. Cantando i primi versi di “Volare” di Domenico Modugno, Lisbeth Gruwez, danzatrice dall’identità fortemente androgina, prepara il suo corpo a spiccare il volo cospargendosi di olio d’oliva, elemento con il quale Fabre gioca dinamicamente per la sua ricca gamma di qualità: fluidità, trasparenza, poteri curativi, protezione contro il calore, nonché per le qualità metafisiche che gli vengono attribuite dalla tradizione storica. Lo spettatore è testimone della mite anarchia del desiderio di evadere dalle costrizioni assecondando l’identità che, prima o poi, ciascuno sceglie per sé. E della leggerezza di un corpo in movimento, a metà strada tra l’uomo e la donna. In bilico fra un mondo e l’altro.
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source: lemondefr

Un canapé vert, un tapis rouge. La danseuse et chorégraphe flamande Lisbeth Gruwez choisit d’abord le premier, avant de glisser vite fait, bien fait, sur le second et d’y rester. Assise en tailleur, allongée, à genoux, les fesses en l’air et le nez dans la laine, elle change de position sans cesse tout en dessinant sur le tapis comme pour illustrer ce qu’elle dit. En français, s’il vous plaît. Elle ramasse et écarte les brins de laine, dresse des forteresses, vibrante à fond, gestes nets et énergie contenue. Aucune ostentation mais une vraie générosité, celle qui sait aussi prendre à bras ouverts des inconnus et tutoie illico. On le savait déjà, on en a une nouvelle preuve : à la scène comme au quotidien, Lisbeth Gruwez, 35 ans, est une bombe.
Le nom de sa compagnie, créée en 2007 avec le musicien et compositeur Maarten Van Cauwenberghe, donne encore un indice sur le tempérament de sa patronne. Voetvolk signifie “infanterie” ou encore “pied du peuple” en flamand. Si elle préfère le premier sens, Maarten Van Cauwenberghe, assis à un bureau à quelques mètres, ne rejette pas le second. Manière de dire qu’elle est un vaillant petit soldat, une prolétaire de la danse, toujours en première ligne pour foncer. L’infanterie trinque mais son poing levé ne meurt jamais. Une attitude qui sied à Lisbeth Gruwez, femme indomptable dont la chaleur met le feu à la moindre brindille de conversation. Au moindre geste aussi lorsqu’elle grimpe sur scène.
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source: numeridansetv

Choreographer Jan Fabre and Lisbeth Gruwez
Dancer Lisbeth Gruwez

The inspiration for this piece was the anthropometric acts by Yves Klein in which bodies were used as living paintbrushes. In Fabre’s work Klein’s often expressionless prints are given a distinct face and an appealing aroma. The dancer moves beneath a sky full of bottles, from which olive oil first drips then gushes and splashes and finally transforms the whole stage into a reflecting bath. The oil evokes a great many connotations: medical, cosmetic, Christian. The olive tree as Mother Earth, old and indestructible, a balm to the world. But there is ambiguity here too: its fruits were once used as a contraceptive. The musical Leitmotiv is the familiar Italian song Volare (oh-oh) by Dominic Modungo. An ode to Klein’s work, and especially his photo Leap into the Void. Fabre sees the whole piece as a ritualistic preparation for the highest leap, which takes us back to the matriarchy. The strength of this solo lies in its constant shifts: from man to woman, from human to animal, from straight line to circle, from rolling, sliding movements to rising slowly upright, like a tree that grows more and more branches, like a swan that has fertilised itself. The atmosphere is summery and Italian, but the howling wind ranges from a gentle summer breeze to an approaching storm. The dancer herself also alternates ritualistic transformations with a juggler’s and conjuror’s tricks. Humming all the time, she plays with her gender, with balls in her trousers, on her chest or in her mouth. Before you know it an hermaphrodite becomes a sexless angel.
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source: youtube

Dancer Lisbeth Gruwez performs Jan Fabre’s piece Quando l’uomo principale e una where girl makes martini, girl is martini….so I read in some Slovakian review of the piece. Jan Fabre is a very interesting artist and choreographer from Belgium whose work is largely and bluntly social and political in nature. I don’t know what blunt socio-politcal statement he’s making here though. Lisbeth Gruwez is very good and really uninhibited. I don’t know where this was filmed but I’m willing to bet it wasn’t in Utah.
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source: nytimes
Jan Fabre has been one of Europe’s biggest names in experimental theater and dance for almost two decades, but his work has been largely ignored in the United States. Last seen here in 1986, Mr. Fabre returned on Thursday night with “Quando l’Uomo principale è una Donna” (“When a Leading Man Turns Out to be a Woman”) at the Alexander Kasser Theater at Montclair State University.

Sung-im Her performs Jan Fabre’s “Quando l’uomo principale è una donna.”
It was a clever choice. “Quando l’uomo” is a solo work that contains the truly surprising provocative imagery and skillful dramatic pacing that are Mr. Fabre’s great gifts — and at a running time of 50 minutes, it comes without the numbing repetition and sometimes gratuitous excesses of his larger-scale works.

Mr. Fabre made the solo, in 2004, with Lisbeth Gruwez, but it is currently being performed by the compelling Korean-born dancer Sung-im Her, whose ability to pull the audience into her world is quite remarkable.

Ms. Her makes herself a martini (grimacing when she tastes it), then pulls three silver balls out of her pants. A repetitive, brilliantly danced, body-wiggling charade ensues as she pretends to swallow a ball and watches it pass down the length of her body. Loud, rhythmic pop music plays every time she does this sequence; at other times she sings “Volare” or falls, flopping and twitching, to the sound of howling wind.

Midway through, Ms. Her opens bottles of olive oil, which she earlier placed in hanging overhead holders. Taking off her black pants and jacket, she lies naked under the dripping bottles, offering a beautifully lighted, body arching, oil-glistening tableau that evokes both pornography and the visual richness of Rembrandt. Then Ms. Her rolls over and over around the stage, legs jack-knifing, arms whirling, sending a fine spray of oil flying into the air.

Eventually she places a wreath on her oil-soaked hair and makes herself another martini. Her transformation from quasi man to elemental woman is complete. Mr. Fabre, who has no dance training, is often only as good as his dancers. Here, that is very good indeed.