Week_End « Ça change ! » > First Production
Création / Cirque-danse
Keith Hennessy /
Circo Zéro« Sol Niger »

Sol Niger is the black sun. The sun hidden by the moon that allows us to see hidden parts of the world. The production is based on this idea: the masking of light can sometimes reveal what is usually invisible. Keith Hennessy, an American artist, works somewhere in between circus, performance, dance, music and visual arts. Together with four circus artists, some musicians and dancers from America, he has created a show strongly focused – physically and politically – on the issue of identity in the U.S. The way he has to use the body to raise societal issues, and to call on directly to the spectator, make him a special and exceptional artist.

*Les Subsistances have already been the setting for two of Keith Hennessy’s performances: SDF USA, created during the “Ça tranche!” WeekEnd, and lately American Tweaker at Les Intranquilles Festival 2006.

Residence
3-28 July 2006, 15–20 January 2007 at Les Subsistances.

Representations :
19, 20, 21 january 2007

Tariff : 3€

Photos

Photos de répétition "Sol Niger" :

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.

See the program ! (in french)

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.

› Les artistes en résidence en 2006 /2007