Gisèle Vienne Kindertotenlieder
[Theatre]
Created in 2007 for the Antipodes festival in Brest, Kindertotenlieder is a sensual, violent experience. It develops through the layering of fantasies, fiction, reality, the unknown and their expression, mixed in with different temporalities. It results in a shift from buried memories to awareness.
In the midst of a snow-covered landscape, Kindertotenlieder unfurls over the course of a prolonged snow fall, in which romanticism, black metal and Austrian pagan culture are mixed together. The poetic dialogues written by Dennis Cooper bring to the stage the coming back to life of a deceased adolescent during his own funeral, and the encounter and ensuing dialogue between this ghost and another adolescent. The piece’s theatricality enables different reconstitutions to be staged, giving rise to an array of hypotheses surrounding the death of the young man, revealing the different strata of memory in the process. Before spoken words ring out, a dialogue is set up between the emotions, bodies, movements and poetry. Onstage, the group KTL (Stephen O’Malley and Peter Rehberg) performs live, and the intensity of their music has a physical effect on us. What emerges from this staging is the way certain alternative music cultures invent new rituals which are reminiscent of religious aesthetics and codes.
Credits
Concept, Gisèle Vienne
Texts and dramaturgy, Dennis Cooper
Translation, Laurence Viallet
With Sylvain Decloitre, Vincent Dupuy, Theo Livesey, Katia Petrowick and Jonathan Schatz
Original music performed live, KTL (Stephen O’Malley, and Peter Rehberg)
and « The Sinking Belle (Dead Sheep) » by Sunn O))) & Boris (in an arrangement by KTL)
Lighting, Patrick Riou
Robot design, Alexandre Vienne
Doll design, Gisèle Vienne
Doll construction, Raphaël Rubbens, Dorothéa Vienne-Pollak, and Gisèle Vienne, assisted by Manuel Majastre
Wooden masks construction, Max Kössler
Make-up, Rebecca Flores
This show is presented In association with Les Spectacles vivants – Centre Pompidou and Festival d’Automne à Paris.
A DACM production
A coproduction by Le Quartz - scène nationale de Brest ; Les Subsistances (Lyon) ; VIADANSE – Centre chorégraphique national de Bourgogne Franche-Comté à Belfort dans le cadre de l’accueil-studio, and Centre National de Danse Contemporaine – Angers – ACCN
In association with Les Spectacles vivants – Centre Pompidou (Paris) ; and Festival d’Automne à Paris
With support from the Ministère de la Culture, DRAC Rhône-Alpes et DICRéAM, Région Rhône-Alpes, Conseil Général de l’Isère, de la Ville de Grenoble, Étant donnés Contemporary Art – FACE Foundation With support from ICI – Centre chorégraphique national Montpellier – Occitanie / Pyrénées Méditerranée, and Point Ephémère (Paris)
With support from CND Centre national de la danse (Pantin) and MC93 – Maison de la Culture de Seine-Saint-Denis for the re-run in 2021
Thanks in particular to Christophe Le Bris, Christophe Tocanier, Kenan Trevien, Arnaud Lavisse and David Jourdain
Thanks to Hortense Archambault and all the MC93 team
With support from Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels
