Mains d’Œuvres celebrates this year its 10th anniversary. 10 years dedicated to new talent and new works. Here, we like to think that process is as important as the product, which makes us love the journey as much as the destination. Here, we like to give the time to artists to take inspiration, to take un-walked paths, to take a breath. This festival is thus born out of their explorations and interrogations and it mirrors the synergies an energies circulating in a place where artists are at work. Each of these artists will present an original 20-min. work and each, in his/her own way, will tell us something about the way they envision our world today. Thanks to them, Mains d’Œuvres carries on believing that artists can alter the way we see the world and the way we live our lives ; that whenever time and space grow narrower and enthusiasms are frustrated by cost-effectiveness and time-efficiency, there is still room for a poetical break.

From June 17th to June 19th, dance, theatre, performance in 4000 sq. m. 10 short works, 10 inspirations, 10 ways of breathing the world !

THE ARTISTS, BRIEFLY...

Mario Batista – Langue Fourche Mario Bastista writes about our everyday life – a tormented everyday life. For a long time now, he has been trying to find a way to link research to transmission through writing workshops focused on social issues. In « Langue Fourche », his words are sharp and intimate and question the inner suffering caused by mixed national identity in emigrant families.

The Dahu - Fabulous The Dahu always builds its projects around the founding myths of personal identity. In their latest work, Fabulous, there is no narrative framework : they depict a mute and disoriented humanity, wandering aimlessly. Through their sensitive theatre and their social interrogations, linked to a strong aesthetic imbued with derision, they deliver here a work as disturbing as jubilant.

L’eau du bain - SSpérances L’eau du bain has always aimed at crossing borders : borders separating art forms, those driving audiences away from art and those which isolate individuals. Each composition element has equal importance on stage : the sound and the lights, as well as the acting, the space and the text. L’eau du bain places audiences at the very core of the project, by giving them the opportunity to see, to hear and to feel all there is to experience. In SSespérance, the sound landscape is a wreck, the fable is decaying… but perhaps there is some love left …

Leïla Gaudin – Cette heure du matin / 7 AM Leïla Gaudin loves everyday stories which are always crucial. She wants us to look through the mirror of that world which expects us to be always perfect, always on time, always always… It’s bubbing with intelligence, liveliness and above all, humour… as long as you don’t read to much in between the lines, as it all goes bittersweet.

Compagnie Ginko - Sensitives Ginko is first and foremost one person and quite a character : Naema Boudouni, the founder, who has been leading her researches for several years on women and their bodies. Her first work told the story of Rita Lenoir, a 50`striptease icon. With Sensitive, the company explores the frame of the cabaret and invites the audience to be aroused by these bygone visions and to find poetry in stripping. A genuine ode to the modern woman.

Groupe ACM – I just wanted to eat an ice cream. Groupe ACM always questions the part given to the audience and invites them to participate to the building of the atmosphere on stage. « I just wanted to eat an ice cream » is a very special access to the backstage, where joy is mixed with disappointment and anxiety… and spicy anecdotes. Beware : no one will be spared.

François Laroche Vallière – Lieu de résonance / Resonant Room Resonant room is an experimental workshop imagined by François Laroche Valière, author and choreographer, and Olivier Dupuy, performer, where poetry is composed and read live. They both believe that the creation process is as important as the work itself – and may even be the work in itself. This « room » is therefore a daily appointment where the author and the reader are placed together in order experience simultaneously their practice.

Camille Mutel - Bursting into oblivion Camille Mutel explores the anonymous body through its density in a fierce research to find the perfect gesture, like a butoh artist for example. She considers herself as an object, offered to one‘s fantasized look and creates an endless number of erotic pictures. But this naked body says nothing. This display turns into a show and then simmers down in the language. And through the transformation of an object into a talking body, the being comes to life / the inanimate becomes animate.

Alexis O’hara - The Tonight Show This Montreal artist mixes drag, electro pop music and spoken word in order to take an ironic look at our tendency to flaunt our inner suffering in public. On stage, she turns into « Nighty Guizo », her manly alterego and plays with multilingual musical mix, schizophrenic ranting, a kind of genre guile and a live sampling of hits.

Inari Salmivaara -I am lying This solo departs from a lying body and builds an imaginative story around it. The dancer narrates a short story of the little community that lives on the lying body. This community lives a simple life diving their time between working and gymnastics. The solo is inspired by the science fiction novels and their ability to make us dream and discover the alternative worlds, invent the words and be curious, adventourous and free. In the times where the science and the technology are the major tools in construction of our world and reality this solo looks for the imaginitive potential of things, returns to simplicity and tries to create movement out of a still and almost naked body.