CECILIA BENGOLEA, FRANÇOIS CHAIGNAUD, MARLENE MONTEIRO FREITAS, TRAJAL HARELL

M)IMOSA, a choreographic collaboration between Cecilia Bengolea, Francois Chaignaud, Marlene Freitas and Trajal Harrell, is the title given to the Medium version of Harrell’s series in seven sizes, (XS) – (XL), entitled Twenty Looks or Paris is Burning at The Judson Church. The propositional departure for the series -“What would have happened in 1963, if someone from the voguing ball scene had come down to Judson Church in Greenwich Village to perform alongside the early postmoderns?”-is not addressed but reconfigured by (M)IMOSA into a encounter between these four artistic voices.

The Voguing dance tradition refers to the competitive balls staged in Harlem dance halls beginning in the 1960’s. A form of social performance practiced primarily by African-American and Latino gays, transvestites, and transsexuals, voguing imitates archetypal social and gender identities through fashion, movement, and behavior. At the same historical moment, in the 1960’s, the pioneers of the postmodern dance broke with the traditional representations of classical and modern dance and sought to make dance without artifice, based in authenticity.

Inspired by Paris is  Burning, the seminal documentary film about voguing; their personal research on voguing; and their collective experience as makers, the four collaborators  in (M)IMOSA dare to own and share the immediate distance between themselves, between them and their inspiration, between what they portend and what they perform, and between their counteracts.

Choreographed and performed Cecilia Bengolea, François Chaignaud, Trajal Harrell, Marlene Monteiro Freitas / Lighting design Yannick Fouassier / Stylism La Bourette / Light manager Sylvain Rausa, Yannick Fouassier / Sound manager Martin Trinquart / Administration-production Anne Reungoat, Jeanne Lefèvre, Céline Peychet   / Diffusion Sarah de Ganck-Art Happens
Special Thanks Matthieu Banvillet, Sarah Michelson, DD Dorvillier, Ben Pryor, Lasseindra Ninja, Alex Mugler, Rumi Missabu, Pascal Queneau, Archie Burnett, Javier Madrid, Matthieu Bajolet, Donatien Veismann, Miguel Bengolea, Marianne Chargois, Joao Figueira, Rio Rutzinger, Emmanuelle Huynh, Jessica Trossman
Production VLOVAJOB PRU  / With Le Quartz – Scène nationale de Brest / Coproduction Le Quartz -­ Scène nationale de Brest, Théâtre National de Chaillot, Centre de Développement Chorégraphique – Toulouse, The Kitchen – New York, Bomba Suicida, FUSED – French US Exchange in Dance / With the support Ménagerie de Verre – Paris et des Laboratoires d’Aubervilliers / Cecilia Bengolea and François Chaignaud are associated to Bonlieu Scène nationale Annecy.
Vlovajob Pru is subsidised by the DRAC Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes and the Conseil Régional Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes. Vlovajob Pru receives the support of the French Institute and of the French Institute/City of Lyon for its projects abroad.

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