Attends, attends, attends… (pour mon père) [Wait, wait, wait... (for my father)]. Photo: Wonge Bergmann.
As part of the main thread of the international Theatre Olympics 2016 festival ?The World as a Place for Truth? in Wrocław Cédric Charron will perform Jan Fabre?s (Troubleyn/Belgium) Attends, attends, attends? (pour mon p?re) [Wait, wait, wait… (for my father)], inspired by Charron?s life. The piece will be presented twice, on 6 November at 8 pm and on 7 November at 7 pm (Audiovisual Technology Center (CeTA), ul. Wystawowa 1).
Additionally, on 7 November at noon, the Wrocław Puppet Theatre will host a meeting with the artist moderated by Anda Rottenberg.
About the piece:
The time between the father and the son is paved by patience. One has seen it all. The other still needs to learn it all. And conversely so. The arrow of time is always to the advantage of the son, because he can start over again, explore the path from its beginning and still have heaps of time, a discomfort the father tries to compensate for by pushing and shoving with all of the power available. The son has to follow his father?s course, a path made by planned instincts, because he?s the father after all, the father of time.
In this performance Jan Fabre explores the art of postponing. The postponement creates a reserve, an instant in which everything is still possible, in which you don?t have to make choices yet. The son has an imaginary exchange of thoughts with his father. He reveals himself as Charon, the ferryman that prepares the father for the last passage. He knows death like none other. Every night again he allows death and birth to come. Every night again he crosses the Styx. He is after all the accomplice of the spiritual, he awakens phantoms and sends them back to their heaven and hell from which they were born. He knows his role well, he?s played it so often. Father will you join me?
For this solo, Jan Fabre was inspired by the life of Cédric Charron, a dancer with whom he has worked closely since As Long as the World Needs a Warrior?s Soul (2000).
Luc Van Den Dries | University of Antwerp
As part of the festival, on 7 November (noon) the organizers will hold a meeting with Jan Fabre moderated by Anda Rottenberg.
Troubleyn/Jan Fabre (Belgium)
Adaptation, director and choreographer: Jan Fabre
Performer: Cédric Charron
Music: Tom Tiest
Costumes: Jan Fabre, Andrea Kränzlin
Lighting: Jan Fabre, Geert Van der Auwera
Choreography: Jan Fabre
Dramaturgy: Miet Martens
Partners: City of Antwerp, Flemish Community
Premiere: 3 April 2014
Running time: 60 minutes
Language: French
Subtitles: English and Polish
Cédric Charron is phenomenal in a role that requires both a dramatic and choreographic talent.
Agn?s Izrine | Danser Canal Historique
Cédric Charron, with his long hair and wild physique, dances in unstable equilibrium, as though suspended above the void, between shadow and light, under tension.
Guy Duplat | La Libre
This highly sculptural smoke, forming hills or clouds, has an uncertainty about it that fits in with the performance. This volatile element structures the whole show.
Guy Duplat | La Libre
Jan Fabre (born 1958, Belgium) graduated from the Municipal Institute of Decorative Arts and Crafts and the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp. In the late 1970s, the still very young Jan Fabre caused a furore as a performance artist. His ?money performances? involved setting fire to bundles of money collected from the audience in order to make drawings with the ashes. Two years later The Power of Theatrical Madness challenged the foundations of the European theatre establishment.
Since then Jan Fabre has grown to become one of the most versatile artists on the international stage. He has made a clean break with the conventions of contemporary theatre by introducing the concept of ?real-time performance? ? sometimes called ?living installations? ? and explores radical choreographic possibilities as a means of resurrecting classical dance. Fabre is renowned for expanding the horizons of every genre in which he pursues his artistic vision. He deals with such themes as violence, lust, beauty and erotica. The body in all its forms has been the subject of his investigations since the early 1980s.
Productions such as Da un?altra Faccia del Tempo, Je suis sang, Angel of Death, Quando l?uomo principale ? una donna, Orgy of Tolerance, Preparatio Mortis and Prometheus ? Landscape II have earned Fabre international acclaim. Over the years, he has also built up an exceptional oeuvre as a visual artist. He has become well known to a wide audience with Tivoli Castle (1990), Heaven of Delight (2002), The Man Who Measures the Clouds (1998), Searching for Utopia (2003) and Totem (2000?2004). Recent, much-discussed exhibitions include Homo Faber (2006), Hortus/Corpus (2011), From the Cellar to the Attic ? From the Feet to the Brain (2008 and 2009), The Hour Blue (2011) and Stigmata: Actions and Performances 1976?2013 (2013 and 2015). He was the first living artist to present his work at the Louvre, Paris (L?Ange de la metamorphose, 2008), and will be the first living artist to create a large scale exhibition at the State Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg (2016).
After completing his MA in economics and political sciences in Rennes, Cédric Charron (France) decided to study performance and dance at PARTS, Brussels, in 1997. He started his collaboration with Jan Fabre in 1999 with the production As Long As The World Needs a Warrior?s Soul. Later, he also performed in Je suis sang, Tannhäuser, The Crying Body, History of Tears, Orgy of Tolerance and Prometheus ? Landscape II, collaborated on Preparatio Mortis (Annabelle Chambon?s solo), starred in Pierre Coulibeuf?s film Les Guerriers de la beauté and was part of Jan Fabre?s 24-hour projectMount Olympus (2015). Besides his work with Fabre, Charron, together with Annabelle Chambon, founded Label Cedana and collaborated with artists such as Boris Charmatz, William Forsythe, Thierry de Mey, Mich?le Anne de Mey, Fatou Traoré and Filip Sangdor.
http://janfabre.be/troubleyn/cedric-charron/
Jan Fabre and his company Troubleyn/Jan Fabre commit to fundamental transdisciplinary scientific research of the theatrical language of Jan Fabre and the guidelines that Fabre uses to strengthen the expressive power of his performances. Throughout his career, Jan Fabre has compiled a set of ?exercises? in the vein of Stanislavski, Meyerhold and Grotowski among others, designed to prepare his performers for their work on stage. These ?guidelines for the twenty-first century performer? have become the cornerstone of his method and are reflected in his work. The series of exercises focuses on structurally honing and optimising the performers? quest for the potential of corporeal acting (also called ?biological? or ?physiological? acting). The emphasis is on exploring the evocative imagination of ?the body as a whole?.
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More about the festival: http://www.theatreolympics2016.pl
