Stage echoes | Crossbreeding of soul mates

Mélanie Demers and Angélique Willkie confess in Public confession, show presented at the Théâtre La Chapelle. A mix of forms, lives and visions between two multidisciplinary artists who know each other well.

Public confession is a solo that Mélanie Demers had dreamed of for a long time, designed by and for her, but postponed due to the birth of her son. His playwright Angélique Wilkie (The Goddam Milky Way in particular) allowed her to reconnect with this concept of performance-dance-theater, which she is pursuing as a professor-researcher at Concordia University.

“She spoke to me about her work on the dramaturgy of the performer or how a performer colors and deflects the course of a creation by its own history and its own culture,” explains the choreographer.

“Self-disclosure is a fascinating issue,” adds Angélique Willkie. I knew Mélanie’s way of working and I knew that the curiosity I had, she would share. It was a question of seeing how to articulate them together. The spectacle is the meeting of our respective truths. This friction adds to the interest and density of the subject. ”

Whose show is it after all? we ask them.

“I feel like I’m getting naked as much as Angelique,” ​​replies Mélanie Demers. We find my obsessions through the material of her own life. I wanted to be guided by Angelique and her by me. It is really a work for two and even three with the tutor Anne-Marie Jourdenais, as a binding of our visions. ”

“We share thoughts that Mélanie puts into shape,” continues Angélique Willkie. I generate words, Mélanie too. As a playwright, my reading is that Mélanie tries to work with the interpreter that I am in my entirety. ”

In addition, the two creators are surrounded by an all-star female team including, among others, Frannie Holder in the music, Odile Gamache in the scenography and Elen Ewing in the costumes.

Impurity

Mélanie Demers and Angélique Willkie in fact promote the “impurity” of artistic mixing in the interstices where several disciplines meet. Mélanie Demers aims for a “total art”, focusing on the theatricality of dance, the importance of words and music. Precisely, Angélique Willkie explored everything on stage during her career: dance, performance, circus, singing …

“When I talk about the show, I say that there is movement, not necessarily dance,” says the latter. It allows me to wonder about what we are talking about today when we talk about dance.

In this personal story, the “confessions” to which the public will be entitled deal as much with the strengths and weaknesses of each, noble feelings and more banal thoughts. Such a dive in itself brings to the surface as much glowing sediment as slag.

“There is something noble and profound about going on stage, but also something vulgar,” says Mélanie Demers. Looks like I want everything in my shows: the beauties of thought and toilet humor. This is life, great elegance and great triviality. Angélique is always on stage and cannot hide from the gaze. So I wonder what the relationship is between a choreographer and a performer. There are parts of admiration, of eroticization, of love-hate. These are deep, marshy relationships. ”

And Angelique Willkie admits: “The trivialities of a 60-year-old woman are not the same as I was at 30. This creation is a birthday present to myself. I work hard. At the end of each sequence, I am exhausted. Everything goes through the body, even the act of speaking. The only way to cross is to let me cross. ”

Public confession is presented until December 4 at the Théâtre La Chapelle. A meeting with the artists will take place after the performance on December 2.

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