Double-bill: Toujours de 3/4 face! & Reverse Discourse

Toujours de 3/4 face!

According to Johnny Cadillac, a former Belgian karateka, « 3/4 face » is the ultimate defensive position: A posture so precise which inevitably betrays a will of perfectionism and a deep desire of control. Loraine Dambermont makes this principle her own and, through a live tutorial, reveals her best self-defence secret skills. Toujours de 3⁄4 face! is a 20 minute hyper energetic solo performed as a survival guide with hints of humour. Dambermont also tackles the complex Belgian identity through movements all directed towards the paroxysm of self-mockery. This performance challenges the physical and mental virtuosity of the performer by pushing the limits of a constrained body between a marathon of hyper fast movements, and the extreme precision of its own musicality.

Choreographer, composer and performer: Loraine Dambermont
Sound mixing advisor: Victor Petit
Light design: Rémy Urbain
Technical manager: Gaspar Schelck
Stage manager: Lucas Baccini
Outer sight: Monica Gomes

Production: Lodbmt
Partner: Le Théâtre de la Balsamine
Supported by: Iles/Suitcase Bruxelles, Le Théâtre Marni – Bruxelles, Garage29 – Bruxelles, Studio 28 – Roubaix, L’Armande – Liège, Le Centre Culturel Bruegel – Perpetuum MOBILE Festival – Bruxelles, La Roseraie – Bruxelles, Theater aan de Rijn – Dance Flavours, Arnhem and Wallonie-Bruxelles International Tour manager: BLOOM Project
Special thanks to Johnny Cadillac

Reverse Discourse

In “Reverse Discourse” I wanted to provoke emotion without mediating the gaze. To challenge the public to recall their own experiences or those transmitted and retransmitted, perpetually perpetuated by external factors, whether we are talking about people or the media. I used the body as a means of visual connection to an absurd dialogue. A bodily dialogue exposed in lines with distinct temporalities, which almost never intersect. An organic dialogue that exposes the dominator-submissive perspectives in multiple hypostases that outline the past and the present. A somatic dialogue that animates the traumas stored in our collective and individual memory. A visceral dialogue about the assumption of power and its exploitation in predominantly dictatorial, manipulative directions. (Ioana Marchidan)

“Reverse discourse” is what the title says. An inverted speech. Depersonalized. Offered naked. Fragile. Intimate. A performance about body politics in which Ioana Marchidan short-circuits the collective body memory, identifying and bringing to the surface deeply rooted gestures, in order to unarchive them and decompose them through a body slide towards an abstract choreography. This cataloging and re-editing of the memory of submission, of the suppression and repression of the meanings of gestures, integrates the public as a participant in the dialogue, as a submissive observer.

It’s interesting to follow in this micro performance the body movements before the gestures take shape. The inventory of gestures comes as an oscillation between submission and oppression until the body gives up on the difference between the two and gets caught up in the energy of change between them.

The choice to construct discourse in this form, a naked back in a space that oscillates from dark abyss to video projections, implies vulnerability. And vulnerability implies an assumed fragility, which allows focusing on the essence of the message: the destructive force of abuse of power.

Concept and choreography: Ioana Marchidan
Sound design: Alexandru Suciu
Video projections and poster: Hermina Stanciulescu
Light design: Hermina Stanciulescu
With: Ioana Marchidan
Production: LINOTIP