Five men, naked, mostly from behind, share the stage. In the rare man, the Ivorian feminist choreographer Nadia Beugré questions masculinity, but also the place of black communities and the influence of external gazes. A daring and political proposal.
“We didn’t choose to be a slave! We must stop believing that we are not capable of pushing this away, we must not accept being stigmatized! says Nadia Beugré when we talk about the trigger for her new creation.
It all started with an experience as an interpreter a few years ago. “A spectator who had seen me in 10000 gestures, by Boris Charmatz, in which I am in a thong and a bra, asked me after the show why I had chosen this “role”. Why did she ask me this question, to me among all the other performers on stage, when there were more than twenty of us? And what “role” was she referring to? I realized that something escaped me in the way people looked at me. Because of role, I played none. But people’s perception often locks you into boxes—as a black woman on a European stage, for example—boxes over which you have no control. Again, they wanted to bring me back to where I needed to be seen, ”she describes.
For a first exploratory research, she invited several black dancers on a set in order to “flip through the different visions, presences, social strata”. “It is over the meetings that the piece took on its full meaning”, continues Mme Beugre.
The one who has been evolving on the international scene for ten years builds all her pieces starting from her encounters and her experience. She explores “what is on the margins, the off-screen, off-frame, the forgotten, the misfits”. Between Abidjan and Montpellier, in France, where she created her company, she works to “build bridges and put back in the center what we do not want to see”. “In Abidjan, we accompany young female artists — for me, they are ‘oil’ girls who shouldn’t be allowed to evaporate,” she explains. In Montpellier, she is also thinking, with Mathilde Monnier, about a program to be set up with young people in her neighborhood, “a somewhat hot district of the city”. “I try, through dance, to open up other avenues for them, as we did for me”, says the one who learned from Béatrice Kombe, artistic director of the TchéTché company, until her death. tragedy, in 2007.
Body symbolism
In the rare man, the performers embody “the affirmation of the body and of oneself”. The question of virility, the male body and physical clichés was at the center of the first discussions. “In the imagination, the buttocks belong to the female register or to homosexuals. I wanted to show that the beautiful buttocks, the games of the kidneys, it was also for heterosexual and virile men, and that it is beautiful to see! says M.me Beugre. It is for this reason that the choreographer decided to start from this part of the body to create a piece for naked bodies, most of the time from behind. “Women can be virile, men can have so-called feminine sensualities. We looked around. »
Finally, for her, nudity also represents “this vulnerability that every human being carries within”. “We are born naked, we die naked. Our body is our shroud. »
Moreover, for the choreographer, the position with her back to the public also refers to “political maneuvers in her country”. “Politicians and their speeches talk to us with the ass, they promise us things that never come, they make decisions among themselves and forget the people who elected them, they forget the youth and the future! What comes back to us, afterwards, on a daily basis, doesn’t smell good…”
Nadia Beugré also assumes the certain “voyeuristic” side of her piece. “Why are people coming? What do they want to see? “She also hopes that the spectator will question himself about his life and his future:” Seeing people from behind, the spectator will remember what he left behind, and what he wants to continue his journey with. »
Child games
On the choreographic side, Nadia Beugré does not fit into a particular style. Trained in traditional African dances, she then went to Germaine Acogny’s Ecole des Sables, then followed the ex.erce training with Mathilde Monnier.
Passionate about movement, she leaves great freedom to performers during the creative process, but also on stage. “Dance all the dances you can dance, all the declarations of love you can make! We don’t know what will happen, so we have to take this show as a moment of initiation, a sacred moment. »
To create, Nadia Beugré mainly starts from the improvisations of the dancers. She is also inspired by children’s games, giving “unexpected images”. “All of a sudden, I say: ‘Imagine a dish and you are the rice. How are you going to move?” Or again: “Society abuses us, imagine that you are dancing on an unstable ball!” »
It is also about “opening up to the unexpected, to the accident, to what takes you elsewhere, on stage as in life”. According to the choreographer, this creates a bond between the dancers, but also destabilizes them. “You never know when it’s going to fall: it’s like in life. It shapes a way of seeing and illuminates the journey. I open a drawer, I choose, and I have to assume this choice,” she concludes.