2 min
Please, please, please, by La Ribot, Mathilde Monnier and Tiago Rodrigues
Three major names from the contemporary scene come together for a gesture of choreographic resistance. Combining dance and text, Please, please, please (2019) stands out above all as a moving song of hope addressed to future generations about the world to come.
Cross-perspectives
Three artists can be found behind Please, please, please.
Maria Ribot, aka La Ribot, is one of the most innovative choreographers of the past 30 years. With her Pièces distinguées, short performances midway between live performances and works of art, she makes the body free to be present, and thus redefines the relationship between stage and viewer.
Alongside her , Mathilde Monnier has also been an influential choreographer since the 1980s. Her work, particularly at the head of ICI – Centre Choregraphique National Montpellier – Occitanie, is marked by a desire to challenge her practice by pitting it against different cultures.
Lastly, Portuguese director Tiago Rodrigues’ work is an ode to stylistic purity. His approach also relies on collective energy, a belief inherited from his time with the theatre company tg STAN in the late 1990s.
Hope(less)
First, there's a long, dull cylinder towering in the background. Then the bodies of the dancers appear, Mathilde Monnier and La Ribot, girded in dazzling outfits. They frolic to the frenetic rhythms of Bartók. Their words speak of chaos, of a world in perdition, and a cocoon that needs to be cast off. The time of the birth rings. A mother and her daughter. A beast being dismembered as if to glimpse the possible outcome of the conflict.
In three separate sequences, the undisciplined and generous dance conceived by Ribot, Monnier and Rodrigues travels between Kafkaesque nightmare and a reflection on the future of our humanity.
Duo, take two
Before starting work on Please, please, please, Mathilde Monnier and La Ribot had already worked together on their duo Gustavia (2008). More than 10 years later, Please, please, please appears the extension of this show.
In it, the two choreographers accentuate a bit further their desire to bring dance and theatre closer together. In a less burlesque but equally subversive register, they also continue to reflect on the feminine, expanding it to a humanity on the brink.
An all-star cast
A Portuguese director (Tiago Rodrigues), a French choreographer (Mathilde Monnier) and her Spanish alter ego (La Ribot) : Please, please, please lays claim, from the outset, to a distinctly international tone.
Presented for the first time on the stage of the Théâtre de Vidy-Lausanne, Switzerland, before being honoured at the prestigious Festival d’Automne in Paris 2019 as part of the « Portrait » programme devoted to La Ribot, the show unites a broad audience with its topical theme – the uncertain future offered to new generations – as well as by the reputation of its authors.
In the context of the Covid-19 Coronavirus pandemic, Institut Français wishes to continue offering you portraits, meetings with creators fromall walks of life, works and portfolios. We hope these few pages will bring some breathing space back into an everyday shaped by lockdown.
Please, please, please, by La Ribot, Mathilde Monnier and Tiago Rodrigues was part of highlights about Women Strength in Lisboa at the Dona Maria II National Theatre.
The highlights, supported by the Institut français, also include - En considérant « Le Théâtre et la Peste », after Jean Racine and Antonin Artaud, staged by Frank Castorf and De la sexualité des orchidées (On The Sexuality of Orchids) by Sofia Teillet.