"Make sure you have exhausted all that is communicated through stillness and silence"
BY MANDAFOUNIS & catherin
Ioannis Mandafounis & Brice Catherin have been each other's spectator for many years. They are also friends. When artists are friends they often have the idea of working together. Ioannis the dancer says: "I never use music in my pieces because I love music and when I hear it I just want to sit and listen to it." Brice the musician says: "I never really know what to do with dancers because when I see them I just want to sit and watch them dance."
Naturally the solution appears: dancing in silence, then playing music motionless then dancing again in silence, then playing music motionless once again, and so on. Taking time to meet each other, to listen to each other, to look at each other, to dive into the other's practice, so that their influence emerges through our own practice.
The established dialogue between Ioannis & Brice consists of long sequences of 20, 30 or 40 minutes without interruption, continuously relayed between the two in order to go further with each new sequence. The two stage dialecticians thus appear as comrades, not opponents.
Then at the corner of some episode from Jean-Luc Godard's Histoire(s) du Cinéma, the latter quotes Robert Bresson’s following phrase, which resonates like a mantra: "Make sure you have exhausted all that is communicated through stillness and silence."
CREDITS
Creation 2018
Concept and interpretation Ioannis Mandafounis, Brice Catherin
Production management Mélanie Fréguin
Production Cie Ioannis Mandafounis
Supported by Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia, City of Geneva, State and Republic of Geneva
"Make sure you have exhausted all that is communicated through stillness and silence" ON TOUR
15 shows, 12 theaters, 9 cities, 5 countries