Corps noir

Length 55 minutes
Premiered at Tangente, Montréal, November 2008
Summary

Corps noir is raw immersion in intimacy. The human body staged in a mad collection of props and objects representing a variety of textures, resonant materials, images and voices, like so many metaphors of identity relayed by a state-of-the-art technology that allows for superimposing, embedding, and fusing. This bazaar of the subconscious and of memory presents the reassembled, disjointed or dislocated pieces of a fictitious self that lies somewhere between solid and liquid, frosted screens, ice and water, warmth and cold, obtuseness and transparency. In Corps noir, the artist reaches the hidden portion of a multifaceted corporeality – the accursed portion…perhaps; the portion that belongs to Eros…beyond the shadow of a doubt. In physics, a black body is defined as an object that absorbs all light that falls on it, at all wavelengths. Stéphane Gladyszewski chooses to become the medium of the message, to expose his inner self and to produce an exploded self-portrait based in the complexity of a star-studded identity and the phantasmagorical constructions of the psyche.

Credits

OVERALL CONCEPT, AND IMAGES Stéphane Gladyszewski
ON STAGE Stéphane Gladyszewski, Elizabeth Emberly
ASSISTANT DIRECTOR AND OPERATOR (AT CREATION) Justine Ricard
LIGHT Yan Lee Chan
SOUND Jean-Sébastien Durocher
REHEARSAL DIRECTOR Anne Lebeau
ARTISTIC ADVISOR Marie-Stéphane Ledoux, Julie Andrée T
PHOTOGRAPHER Nicolas Minns

PRODUCTION Stéphane Gladyszewski
COPRODUCTION Tangente, Agora de la Danse
WITH THE SUPPORT OF the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, Canada Concil for the Arts, Daniel Léveillé danse, Cirque du Soleil
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER Marie-Andrée Gougeon for Daniel Léveillé danse

Press excerpts

“Powerful images that are fœtal or erotic or both at once, presented as an overwhelming series of portraits stamped directly onto the retina ... Truly, a beautiful work of art. »
- La Presse, Montréal.

“In the intimacy of a studio, a fierce object, a luminous, moving and powerful discovery … His “Corps noir” is presented as a “solo on the self.” By turns, we follow, lose and attempt to divine Gladyszewski – between ice, water and steam, the womb and psychoanalysis, between complete darkness and intense flashes, between painting and dance – and at length, we’re completely won over. We hope to see him again. ”
- La libre Belgique, Brussels.

“A modern-day alchemist, Stéphane Gladyszewski gives us a show that seems improvised and magical yet also requires tremendous discipline and precision. Between the actual and the virtual, the spectator is left awestruck and full of questions . . . ”
- Rue du Théâtre, Brussels.