Faye Driscoll Thank You For Coming: Attendance

Thank You For Coming: Atendance is the first in a series of choreographies in which Faye Driscoll investigates and reinvents the community that develops during the course of a performance. Whilst steering clear of any participatory, coercive forms of theatre, the American choreographer extends the sphere of influence of performance in order to incorporate the audience into a festive and joyous ritual, of the kind which permits the emergence of a collective experience. On stage, five dancers reveal themselves to the eyes of the audience and surrender their bodies to a succession of metamorphoses. The poses that the performers strike evoke paintings by the great classic artists, adopt all the extravagance of the drag queens, and recall the gesturing of a bird as it feeds its offspring, before entering into intense, extreme physical states. The choreographer Faye Driscoll constantly confronts members of the audience with images of an archetypal and utterly contemporary nature. Thanks to a surprising and audacious dramaturgy, she expresses a group’s utopian desires, made visible by the interdependence and intermingling of moving bodies, in parallel with its power in terms of formatting and uniformity. Since her first piece, Wow Mom, wow (2007), Faye Driscoll questions the notion of “being someone” in a world governed by the daily performance of being oneself. Her shows breed a disconcerting feeling of familiarity, into which strangeness makes a brutal intrusion. The purpose of this wiping out of all our reference points which ensues is none other than to try to create new ways of being together.

December 5th,  15h
Free Entrance
Mona Bismarck American Center
34 avenue de New York 75116 Paris
Reservation : rsvp@monabismarck.org

Faye Driscoll Speaks:
Thank you for Coming: Attendance
“Ms. Driscoll is fascinating in that she makes such utterly original work. It doesn’t look like anything you’ve ever seen before, nor can you imagine thinking it up.” – The New York Times. Marking her performance at the Theatre de Gennevilliers, as part of the Festival d’Automne American dance series, Bessie award-winning choreographer Faye Driscoll speaks (in English) about her bold and surprising performance, Thank you for Coming: Attendance, taking us behind the scenes of her creative process, inspirations and desires for utopia