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Cie Philippe Saire
Av. de Sévelin 36
1004 Lausanne
Suisse

in permanent residency at Théâtre Sévelin 36

+41 21 620 00 12 info@philippesaire.ch

Newsletter

×

Cie Philippe Saire
Av. de Sévelin 36
1004 Lausanne
Suisse

in permanent residency at Théâtre Sévelin 36

+41 21 620 00 12 info@philippesaire.ch

Newsletter

Lonesome Cowboy spectacle ×

Premiere at Festival La Bâtie, Geneva, September 1st, 2009. Rerun 2012. Choreography for 6 dancers.

Research on masculinity
With his dancers, Philippe Saire questions the masculine identity and explores, in a playful way, how both individuals and groups function. By using play and clearly defined rules, Lonesome Cowboy approaches notions such as team spirit, solidarity, confrontation, rapprochement and avoidance, belonging to a group, risk taking… Seeking inspiration in the codes of sport, the piece is performed as a physical experiment on masculine relationships within the group. Here, the group tends towards gregariousness and to a sort of acceptable proximity, because they are lost in the crowd. A male duet concludes the piece with a treatment of separation and fusion during a long sequence of struggle, obliging a certain intimacy which is fought against here.

Man and his incessant desire to dominate. Man and his sense of being part of a team. Man and his need to take risks, to confront himself, to belong to a group… Philippe Saire uses powerful choreography to embody the numerous facets of masculine identity. Six dancers experiment with physical relationships within a group of men, seeking inspiration in the codes of sporting activity. A long struggle between two of them, personifies the need for fusion and separation of this male duet. The power of direct body language, expressed by dancers whose generosity drives them to near exhaustion.
P.-L. Chantre | Programme La Bâtie-Festival of Geneva


The reflection was inspired by Elisabeth Badinter’s book, XY, on masculine identity, which unravelled with great pertinence the reasons underlying the affirmation of masculinity and its excesses. 15 years after this work was written, the situation has hardly changed and the confusion that she describes, that of «a mutilated man, torn between contradictory images, continuously repressing an essential part of his nature».

Masculinity is still in search of its identity. For years, it defined itself solely in opposition: an absolute need to differentiate itself from the female, the maternal. Asserting itself against any possibility of assimilation into the feminine. «Protesting», as Badinter put it. At a later stage, it had to protest against this very form of protestation, reject its macho image. Today, it creates «hominism» and its related demands. Badinter must be smiling; she who simply sought a form of reconciliation.

The subject of this piece, even if it is basically inspired by the present state of masculinity, has no didactic pretensions and is not meant to illustrate it in any way. These data served as a starting point and as nourishment for the research, but the work itself is to do with the effects of this situation and their direct physical transcription.


«In this context, with the group of six dancers, we decided to approach one of the last bastions of the male-only group, where what we might call «virile» values are still upheld: the world of sport. We then invented several match scenes that are played out for real and so are improvised during the show. We inserted some written sequences, in order to allow a sense of shift and provide some highlights. The very direct and concrete action imposed by this use of real-time play dictated the choice of gestures, which are also meant to be very engaged and stripped of all decorative features. It is a physical style that actually calls for an almost physical response from the audience.
The treatment used in the duet (created in 2004 in Dublin for the DTI and source of inspiration of the piece) was in that sense also a good benchmark: a long attempt to master the other that is just as eloquent on the mastery we try to achieve over ourselves, and which ends up in an irresistible need for fusion. Of the game, we kept the sense of emulation, the fraternal spirit, the physical promiscuity, the gregariousness… but also the need to dominate and sometimes the feeling of regression…
The show passes from one style to another, constantly slipping in concrete references at moments where the meaning is much more open. The final duet synthesizes all that has been at stake until that moment. The foundation of the entire piece is a questioning of masculine identity.»


Choreography in collaboration with the dancers
Philippe Saire


Dancers
Jean Bahrel, Jens Biedermann, Pablo Esbert Lilienfeld, Benjamin Kahn, Richard Kaboré, Mike Winter


Light design
Laurent Junod


Sound design
Christophe Bollondi


Set design
Sylvie Kleiber


Costumes
Isa Boucharlat


Artistic advice
Philippe Weissbrodt


Technical manager
Dominique Dardant, Yann Serez


Sound engineer
Jérémy Conne


Photographers
Mario Del Curto, erias


Video
Pierre-Yves Borgeaud


Graphic design
René Walker


Coproduction
Cie Philippe Saire, La Bâtie-Festival de Genève


Thanks
Claude Champion and Tennis-Club Lausanne


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Past dates

02.09.2009
04.09.2009
Lucerne (CH)
17.09.2009
18.09.2009
Lausanne (CH)
04.11.2009
22.11.2009
Bologne (IT)
15.01.2010
15.01.2010
Berne (CH)
09.04.2010
10.04.2010
Sao Paulo (BR)
01.09.2010
02.09.2010
04.09.2010
05.09.2010
Porto Alegre (BR)
11.09.2010
13.09.2010
New-York (US)
06.01.2011
09.01.2011
05.02.2011
05.02.2011
New-York (US)
07.02.2011
10.02.2011
Lausanne (CH)
06.02.2012
06.02.2012
Sint Niklas (BE)
09.02.2012
09.02.2012
Bruxelles (BE)
11.02.2012
11.02.2012
Anvers (BE)
14.02.2012
14.02.2012
Evergem (BE)
16.02.2012
16.02.2012
Roeselare (BE)
18.02.2012
18.02.2012
Bari (IT)
21.03.2012
21.03.2012
Pesaro (IT)
24.03.2012
24.03.2012