Sous Les Pavés... La Terre

MARIA CLARA VILLA LOBOS, ANTOINE PEDROS, FRAUKE MARIËN, ROGER VINAS LOPEZ, VIOLA DI LAURO dance | FRANÇOIS LAURENT text, urban poetry | MICHEL DEBRULLE drums, percussions | NICOLAS DECHÊNE guitars | LAURENT DEHORS saxophones, clarinets, bagpipes, jaw harp | STEPHAN POUGIN drums, percussion

Choreography : Maria Clara Villa Lobos

Stage direction : Jean-Michel Frère

Scenography : Claire Renard

Conception : Myriam Mollet, Michel Debrulle

Inspired by the infinite potential of the street, we looked into the events of May '68 in France, and discovered that the end of that decade was the cradle of a proliferation of political, social and cultural struggles and uprisings across the globe: demonstrations against the Vietnam War; those in response to the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy; thousands of citizens taking to the streets in defence of the Prague Spring; the Black Panther marches, events in Mexico City, student demonstrations in Italy, Japan...

Since then, movements and events such as the Arab Spring, the Outraged movement, Occupy Wall Street in the USA, Nuit Debout, Femen, Marche des Fiertés, the Human Chains, the Gilets Jaunes, Las Tesis, StillStanding... have constantly reminded us that gatherings and expression in the public space remain privileged modes of protest and demand.

In these moments, the street becomes a territory of political, citizen, poetic and playful appropriation and expression...

Beyond the historical, social and political content of these different movements, our proposal highlights the centrality of the body in any act of protest, even in the age of virtual and petitions of all kinds.

Dance and movement as a practice of the eternal ephemeral, of change by excellence, intrinsically reflect this constant questioning.

In the same way, words, aphorisms, poetry and graphic art participate fully in the sense of History and in the impulses of these multiple demonstrations and uprisings. Certain slogans, graffiti, extracts of speeches cross history and feed our inspiration.

By combining the demanding and the generous, the sharp and the popular without simplifying, watering down or formatting artistic expression, we like to go where we are not necessarily expected.

This is why one of the challenges of this show is to bring to the street three styles of artistic expression - jazz, contemporary dance and urban poetry - often followed by informed audiences in specific places.

A production of Arsenic2 and Collectif du Lion asbl with the support of the Fédération Wallonie Bruxelles.