babil

The Scarecrow Cycle

A body rises above its own chaos seemingly thrust by a complicated melancholy. A gaping identity, a pierced thought, a language full of holes, practiced from the birth of language. Murmured words, a new body, a project of exile, a dream in action right until the end.

The metamorphosis of a body’s raw material, like that of a verb questioning with pleasure and pain the link between two.

From his first until his last steps, all that man tries to do is remain standing. From the earth to the backbone, verticality as a principle but also a question.

If we try to become one with the word, then we become one with the world. Fury of the spirit and rage of the body. Recoupling words to the physical movements that gave birth to them is just the logical and discursive side of speech that has disappeared beneath its physical and emotional side, so that the words are perceived as movements.

From murmur to scream.

As if he’d never stopped being born.

THE SCARECROW

A poet of ancient times who still reigns from the corner of the field, it is difficult to describe the scarecrow: an impostor, a bogeyman, an ogre, a phantom, a protester, a crucifix, a no-through sign, a tower, an hourglass…

For me, a scarecrow is both a touching and contradictory figure, a lonely soldier of terror who has never scared anyone. He belongs to the imagination. This vertical being is man’s double, a self-portrait that does not speak its name, a no-through sign, and a protester who opens his arms to us when he is not hanged, crucified or bound.

This is a being of abandonment, in abandonment.

Giving life to a scarecrow is to become alive again, to revive, reconstruct, and to relearn. Trying to reach that place where the dual movement of vertical falling and elevation is produced, a contradiction vital to a living being.

The difficult birth of a body and a word that are linked and which begin over and over again, in perpetuity.

babil is part of the Scarecrow Cycle, after “Fidèle à l’éclair” and “havran”. The three figures reunite at last in the work “Humus vertebra”, the absurd encounter of the three.
A fourth solo, “Benedetto Pacifico”, joined the Cycle in September 2011.

Conception and choreography: Karine Ponties

Interpretation and text: Eric Domeneghetty

Composer: David Monceau

Light design: Julie Petit-Etienne

Costumes: Samuel Dronet

Technical direction: Guillaume Fromentin

Length: 20 minutes

Production: Dame de Pic/Cie Karine Ponties

Coproduction: Théâtre Les Tanneurs – Brussels (Belgium), Centre des Bords de Marne – Le Perreux, CDC/ Biennale nationale du Val de Marne (France).

With the support of Ministère de la Communauté française Wallonie-Bruxelles – Service danse, Wallonie-Bruxelles Théâtre/Danse.

Dame de Pic / Cie Karine Ponties is supported by the Ministry of Culture of Federation Wallonie-Bruxelles, service danse and Wallonie-Bruxelles International.

18.06.2016 • Festival En pratiques, Vatan, France

07.11.2014 → 2014-11-08 • Festival MES DE DANZA, , Spain

03.05.2014Theatre de la Ville, Esch, Luxembourg

18.02.2014 → 2014-03-01Théâtre de la Vie, Bruxelles, Belgium

04.02.2014CCAM – Scène Nationale , Vandoeuvre les Nancy, France

24.01.2014Théâtre de Lisieux – Scène conventionnée, Lisieux, France

22.09.2013Centre Pompidou Metz, Metz, France

14.09.2013 → 2013-09-15Le Gymnase – CDC, Roubaix cedex 1, France

17.05.2013La Danse de tous les Sens, Rencontre chorégraphique, Falaise, France

15.02.2013Theater aan het Vrijthof, Maastricht, Netherlands

02.02.2013CC Braine l’Alleud, Braine-l’Alleud, Belgium

11.07.2012 → 2012-07-14 • CDC- Les Hivernales d’Avignon en partenariat avec le Théâtre les Doms , Avignon, , France

19.06.2012 → 2012-06-20Physical Theatre Festival , Séoul, Republic of Korea

23.03.2012ONYX – La Carrière, Saint-Herblain, France

02.02.2012Festival ProPulse, Bruxelles, Belgium

18.11.2011 • Objectifs Danse, Brussels, Belgium

12.06.2011Kasarne Kulturpark, Kosice, Slovakia

10.06.2011Zahrada – Centrum nezavislej Kultury, Banská Bystrica, Slovakia

08.06.2011Stanica, Zilina, Slovakia

06.06.2011Divaldo 29 Theatre, Pardubice, Czech Republic

05.06.2011DIOD Theatre, Jihlava, Czech Republic

03.06.2011Alfred ve dvoře Theatre, Prague, Czech Republic

02.06.2011HaDivadlo, Brno, Czech Republic

26.04.2011 → 2011-04-30Théâtre Les Tanneurs, Bruxelles, Belgium

20.04.2011 • Centre culturel régional de Louga, Louga, Senegal

19.04.2011 • Centre culturel régional de Thiès, Thiès, Senegal

04.02.2011 → 2011-02-05Centre Wallonie-Bruxelles, Paris, France

16.07.2010Teatro a Corte, Turin, Italy

25.05.2010 → 2010-05-26 • Festival Seine de Danse / Conseil général des Hauts-de-Seine, Nanterre , France

13.02.2010 → 2010-02-14La Ferme du Buisson – Noisiel (Scène Nationale), Marne-la-Vallée , France

27.01.2010 → 2010-01-29Centre des Bords de Marne, Le Perreux-sur-Marne, France