Brucelles

Brucelles (lat. Bersella), very fine spring-clip used for picking up small objects. A kind of epilating forceps.

A piece in pieces, pieces of a piece. Brucelles is the meeting and confrontation between three worlds (Glabelle (solo), Les Taroupes (duo) et Keep Smiling (trio) ) around a central point or shared place; each of these worlds has its own rites, codes, games and traditions.

Keep Smiling is a working stage that foreshadows the creation of Brucelles, carried out with Éric Domeneghetty, Juan Benitez and Jean Fürst.

Hybridisation and co-existence, reorganisation of a mini-society out of a confrontation with solitude, with a duality and a threefold unity, around the Robert Walser/Brothers Quay film, Institute Benjamenta.

Since I arrived at Institute Benjamenta, I have already succeeded in becoming an enigma to myself. I, too, was contaminated by a very strange sense of contentment which I had never before experienced. I obeyed reasonably well, though not as well as Kraus, who has perfected the art of bending over backwards to follow orders (…) we are all alike in one respect (…) we are humble, humble to the nth degree of servility (…) We wear uniforms, and this uniform humiliates us and reveals everything at the same time. We look like slaves in them and it may be a shame, but we also look good, and this separates us from the profound ignominiousness of those people who wander about in clothes that are fine for them, but dirty and torn. (…) No, what Mademoiselle Benjamenta teaches us seems to me to be worth meditating on. It isn’t much, and we keep repeating it, but perhaps there is a secret behind all of these vain and laughable things. Laughable? We, the boys of Institute Benjamenta, are never in the mood to laugh. Our faces and attitudes are very serious.

(…) What I know is that I will grow up to be a beautiful, big round zero.

Excerpt from Institute Benjamenta by Robert Walser.

Original title. Jakob von Gunten. Ein Tagebuch 1909.

– How many bodies have we been?

– How many are let to us to inhabit, to leave?

– Designate – share similarities – join – intertwine – intervene – differ – displace – defer or integrate.

– Before each meeting, think of the road travelled by the other.

Choreography : Karine Ponties

Dancers: Juan Benitez, Alessandro Bernardeschi, Éric Domeneghetty, Jean Fürst, Cécile Loyer and Mauro Paccagnella.

Light designer: Florence Richard

Music score: Didier Casamitjana

Premiere : On November 2nd, 2000 at the Bottelarij in Brussels

Length : 1h

Brucelles is a Dame de Pic asbl and Charleroi/Danses (Centre Chorégraphique de la Commuanuté française) production.

In coproduction with Bruxelles/Brussel 2000, La Balsamine theater, Bellone-Brigittines Festival, Kunstencentrum Vooruit and DansWerkplaats Amsterdam.

With the support of the Ministère de la Communauté française – Dance section and Lod.

08.05.2003 → 2003-05-10 La Rotonde – Centre chorégraphique, Québec , Canada

04.05.2003 → 2003-05-06L’Agora de la Danse, Montréal, Canada

12.07.2002 → 2002-07-13Festival de la Cité, La Croix sur Lutry, Switzerland

06.06.2002 → 2002-06-08Théâtre de La Balsamine, Bruxelles, Belgium

18.05.2002DanceCity Festival Newcastle, Newcastle, United Kingdom

29.01.2002CC Brugge, Bruges, Belgium

10.11.2001 → 2001-11-11Centre Wallonie-Bruxelles, Paris, France

13.06.2001Mainzer Kammerspiele, Mainz, Germany

17.03.2001 • Les Bords de Marne, France, France

10.03.2001 • Objectifs Danse – Studio PBA, Charleroi, Belgium

01.03.2001 → 2001-03-02Espaces Pluriels, Scène conventionnée, Pau, France

05.12.2000 → 2000-12-06Vooruit , Gent, Belgium

02.11.2000 → 2000-11-07 • Bottelarij, Bruxelles, Belgium