Photos de répétition "Sol Niger" :
© Keith Hennessy
Keith Hennessy is an American artist who lives in San Francisco. He is a multiskilled artist and the artistic director of company Circo Zéro. His first eponymous show is an intimate and spectacular circus performance (as he defines it himself), which incorporates circus and contemporary dance with a soundtrack based on American songs actualised in “electronica”. Hennessy is fond of popular art (street performances, folk, circus). He works with various companies including the French company Cahin-Caha. As an associate of the program of the MFA - Goddard College (California), he has taught performance and street theatre at the New College of California from 1990 to 1996. He is a member of the collective Alternate Roots, a service organisation for artists, where he serves as an adviser, a director, a professor, a curator and an agitator.
Sol Niger will explore the qualities of indirect light, of shadows, and of their perception. Current political issues and the question of American identity will underlie my work. The effects and movement of light, and the alignment of bodies in space will constitute starting points for the production (showing that it is preferable to see some things in darkness). Sol Niger will attempt to build bridges between dominating and dominated civilisations and between experimental art and popular art. Virtuosity and the lack of, circus and performances will combine to form an imagined world of shadows and lights, danger and trust, seasoned with live music (singing, acoustic and electronic music).”
Keith Hennessy.
Directed and performed by Keith Hennessy. In partnership with Seth Eisen (performance), Emily Leap (circus), Brett Womack (circus), Sean Petit (music).
Coproduced by Les Subsistances / Lyon / France, Centre National Chorégraphique de Belfort.
This residence is part of the FUSED (French-US Exchange in Dance), a programme coordinated and supported by the cultural services of the French Embassy in the US, with the help of FACE (French American Cultural Exchange) and the New England Foundation
for the Arts/National Dance Project. With the generous help of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and Région Rhône Alpes.