Brutalis

At the outset, drawing meets dance, ink meets body. Timeless bodily states follow, sharing the stage with other presences, among them music and an echo; light and dark matter. From this emerges a woman and her multiple inner selves: insectoid, grotesque, divine, combative, broken, fragile. Brutalis immerses us in an inner world at once intimate and organic, where the lone body conjures up the accelerated evolution of the human race, and where the body is a landscape of dust, bones and skin. RAW.

“With detached extravagance and with no fear for the ugly or the grotesque Karine Ponties crushes and deforms herself, bringing a paradoxical creature into being, all bone and rubber, whose apparent dryness conceals marvels of elasticity”. Le Monde, Rosita Boisseau

Brutalis received the SACD prize for choreographic creation in 2002.

Feet on the ground and head in the clouds, between which lies a body. The body thinks with its hands, builds with its head, little by little. The skin would like to turn inside out and tries. Tired of being on top, the head leans forward and shrouds itself in darkness. Love leaves the head and the head resigns itself to remembering the source.

(…) We are all creatures of an inner labyrinth – the battle we wage, we wage between our selves. Every individual is the bearer of inner multiplicities and virtual personalities; of an infinite array of imaginary characters; of a poly-existence in the real and the imagined, in sleep and wakefulness, in obedience and transgression, in what is conspicuous and what is secret; of a larval teeming in fathomless caverns and chasms (…).

Edgar Morin

(…) in continually descending walls covered with childish graffiti, we reach a silent sanctuary where a small idol dwells – blind, sovereign andindifferent (…).

Edgar Morin

The issue of the subject is dissolved in a play on the subject. Identity is a field of disasters, while humour is a means of defusing the gravitas of the statement, of suspending it.

Jurgen Klauke

Articles
Muriel Steinmetz
- 11 mars 2003
André Martin de Montréal
Rosita Boisseau
Jean-Marie Wynants
La libre Belgique

Choreography and performance: Karine Ponties

Artistic collaboration (visuals, set design): Thierry Van Hasselt

Lighting designer and artistic advisor: Florence Richard

Set design: Eric Domeneghetty, Wilfrid Roche

Music score: Jan Kuijken and Dominique Pauwels

Recorded with: Dirk Descheemaeker (clarinet), George Van Dam (violins), Kristof Rosseuw (double bass), Jan Kuijken (piano and cello)

Thanks to: Laurence de Jonge, Jean-Luc Goossens, Marco Leone, Valérie Martino

Length: 55 minutes

Premiere: December 17, 2002, Chapelle des Brigittines, Brussels.

Production: Dame de Pic / Cie Karine Ponties

Coproduction: Les Brigittines, Charleroi/Danses – Centre Chorégraphique de la Communauté française Wallonie-Bruxelles, LOD, Centre Chorégraphique National de Rennes.

01.02.2007 → 2007-02-04Tangente, Montreal, Canada

25.01.2007 → 2007-01-27Live Art Productions, Halifax Nova Scotia, Canada

19.01.2007 → 2007-01-20One Yellow Rabbit Festival, Calgary Alberta, Canada

16.01.2007 → 2007-01-17The Scotia Bank Dance Center, Vancouver, Canada

20.05.2006Maison de la culture d’Amiens – SN, Amiens , France

03.03.2006 • Théâtre du Chevalet, Noyon, France

17.12.2005Charleroi/Danses, Bruxelles, Belgium

21.10.2005 → 2005-10-23Festival Otono Madrid, Madrid, Spain

24.03.2005 → 2005-03-25Mu Theatre, Budapest, Hungary

26.02.2005Kaaitheater, Bruxelles, Belgium

08.02.2005 → 2005-02-10Centre Wallonie-Bruxelles, Paris, France

03.12.2004 → 2004-12-04 • CCN d’Orléans, Orléans, France

23.10.2004Maison de la Culture de Marche-en-Famenne, Marche en Famenne, Belgium

23.08.2004 → 2004-08-24Les Brigittines, Bruxelles, Belgium

23.06.2004 → 2004-06-24Tanec Praha, Praha , Czech Republic

19.06.2003 → 2003-06-21 • Newpoort, Gand, Belgium

01.06.2003Dance Week Festival, Zagreb, Croatia

06.03.2003 → 2003-03-08 • Espace Culturel André Malraux, Le Kremlin-Bicêtre, France

21.02.2003 → 2003-02-22Endanza, Sevilla, Spain

12.12.2002 → 2002-12-21Les Brigittines, Bruxelles, Belgium