Bataille

Bataille is a confrontation between two physical actors : on the one hand Hassan Razak, specialist in body percussions and on the other hand Pierre Cartonnet, specialist in acrobatics. This confrontation is a (...)

Bataille

Bataille is a confrontation between two physical actors : on the one hand Hassan Razak, specialist in body percussions and on the other hand Pierre Cartonnet, specialist in acrobatics.
This confrontation is a complex, paradoxal and ambiguous battle. Is it a realist dance or a choreographic battle ? Is it an agreed contract on both parts or unilateral violence ? Is it a credulous game ? Is the violence endured or consented ? Masochist or sadistic ?
This battle plays with oppositions : the inside and outside of narration, alternating humour and anguish ; the back and forth between realism and abstraction. The whole of these paradoxes underlines the contradictory relations between the I and its Unconscious, occasionally master and commander on board this game of mutual illusions.
It is also two relationships to the flux of life who confront each other, which inevitably provoques deception, violence, pleasure, domination, submission, ecstasy…
Georges Bataille, whose name is given to this piece, is not very far. He wrote : “I have lost my faith in a burst of laughter” and also “Everything was false, even my pain. I started to cry again as much as I could : my sobbing had no sens.” It is in this permanent ambivalence that the play stages its unsteady balance between hope and disillusion.
The body percussion, as a choreographic vocabulary studied in all its variations, becomes the apparel on which the staging of the urges of life, death and violence will lean on.

Pierre Rigal, June 2013

“The punch smashes the silence to pieces.
The uppercut of the invisible enemy hits the bull’s eye.
The pleasure of the pain overexcites the carcass.
The invisible enemy is very familiar to me. He ressembles me.
Against him, the fight is already lost.
But victory is not the honest sought goal. Defeat will be better.
The will of chance is not laughable.
What is laughable is misfortune.
Wealth is the heroism of failure.
The weird picture of perfection runs galloping after me.
When it overtakes me, I loose my pace.
I let it pass bye. And I run behind it with the angels laughing at me.
They make me laugh. I am breathless and ridiculous.”

Pierre Rigal

 Production Compagnie Onstap, compagnie dernière minute
 Coproduction SACD, Festival d’Avignon, ARCADI Île-de-France, Parc de la Villette (WIP)
 With the support of DRAC Provence-Alpes Côte d’Azur, Region Provence-Alpes Côte d’Azur, Region Midi Pyrénées, Scène nationale de Cavaillon, Centre Chorégraphique national de Roubaix Nord-Pas de Calais / Carolyn Carlson & CENTQUATRE - Paris.
 Residency at Ferme du Buisson - scène nationale de Marne-la-Vallée, La Brèche / Pôle National des Arts du Cirque / Cherbourg-Octeville et Tandem, scène nationale Arras-Douai

Compagnie ONSTAP is supported by DRAC Provence-Alpes Côte d’Azur, Conseil Régional Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, Conseil Général du Vaucluse & City of Avignon.

Compagnie dernière minute is subsidized by Ministry of Culture & Communication / Préfecture of region Midi-Pyrénées, Region Midi-Pyrénées & City of Toulouse.

Pierre Rigal/Hassan Razak/Pierre Cartonnet

Conception
Pierre Rigal

Stage composition
Pierre Cartonnet, Hassan Razak & Pierre Rigal

Performance
Pierre Cartonnet & Hassan Razak
Isolated role reprisal : Benoit Canteteau & Denis Robert

Music
Julien Lepreux

Lighting design
Pierre Rigal & Loïc Célestin

Assistant to the choreographer & costume designer
Mélanie Chartreux

Researcher & dramaturgy advising
Taïcyr Fadel

Length 50 minutes

Created on the 19th July 2013 as a 30 minutes version at the Avignon Festival for the Sujets à Vif program.
The final version was created on the 2nd December 2013 at Tandem, scène nationale Arras-Douai

114
performances
since 19 July 2013 in 9 countries.

 

Diary