Theatre Performance

25, 26, 27 and 28 MARCH 2010

Anticodes

Take 4 ravishing air hostesses. Take them out of their natural environment, the plane. Put the four of them in a 3x2m aquarium. Objects of desire, Amsterdam prostitutes... or merely cheeky colleagues? This performance examines with humour our codes of representation.

’’Whether they are perceived as cliché sex-objects, fantasised women, shop dummies, or Amsterdam prostitutes, these “Jennifers” are not merely a social and feminist critique: absorbed in their strange journey, cut off from reality and time, they move in a poetic and imagined space, a separation-creating device. The shop window is both an incarnation of the claustrophobic tube of the plane and a metaphor for the - literal - display of role playing: social, professional, theatrical, etc. Echoing the exhibition framework, the obstacle creates the impossibility to touch the work, while the work is free to touch us. By letting the audience walk around the window freely during the performance, the artist allows each spectator to look at whatever their eyes are attracted to, to peek at the actresses in detail, or to take a step back for an overall view, and as a result to create their own intimacy with the performance according to their own sensibility. Several meanings are possible: the demystification of the figure of the air hostess, and all that it usually stands for; vertigo (a sense of dizziness created by the repetition of texts and actions) as the chosen form to represent the world of today; emotional stress leading to a panic attack or fits of hysterics; women exposed as commercial objects, heralding the future merchandising of human beings…’’ Carré Rouge Compagnie

Background

Compagnie Carré Rouge was born in 1998 in Geneva, under the drive of theatre director Sandra Amodio. With a background in puppeteering and theatre of objects, Amodio builds on the relation to space, the body and the voice. Her plays are designed to be moving canvases, built with a juxtaposition of physical action, music, video, lighting and contemporary texts. In 2004, Sandra Amodio asked actresses Catherine Büchi, Lisa Morand and Léa Pohlhammer to participate in the project entitled JENNIFER ou la rotation du personnel naviguant introducing the concept of performative play.

Cast and Crew (TBC)

Collective production. Directed by Sandra Amodio. Choreography by Mélanie Bestel, Tiphanie Bovay, Joëlle Fontannaz, Nina Langensand. Written by Sébastien Grosset. Music by Julien Baillod. Costumes by Gloria Del Castillo. Lighting by Claire Firmann.

Distribution: Philippe Clerc.

Copyright: Hélène Göhring

Coproduced by Galerie Fonde.

With the support of: Pro Helvetia, Fondation Suisse pour la Culture, Swiss government, Geneva local authorities, and the Department for Culture of the city of Geneva.

Price

Free

Duration

35’