Troupeau/Rebaño
Piece for three dancers in sheepskin and sequins
The Spanish word rebaño means herd or group. The tone is set. After her solo performance 25.06.76, a daring introspection focused on her own roots, Ayelen Parolin has turned over the page and is now exploring the question of instinct.
The piece starts with three performers walking on four legs, like animals pasturing imperturbably. The derision caused by the scene is fed by the recollection of our childhood games but soon makes way for more serious considerations. Beyond the question of instinct, Ayelen Parolin probes the porosity of the borderline between man and animal. Culture constantly drives man further away from his nature. However, he always remains subject to certain impulses, dictated by his instincts. Troupeau/Rebaño is about man’s most instinctive behaviours. Lust versus violence. The violence of lust versus the lust of violence.
Ayelen Parolin does not intend to represent humanized animal sor bestialized humans, hovering between anthropomorphism and zoomorphism. Instead, she builds a hybrid figure base don the layout of images that are out of kilter with any tangible reality. From this impossibility of being certain states can result what appears as counterpoints to the evoked impulses. Apathy and insensivity arise as answers to lust and violence.
Created on 15 & 16 December 2006, Festival 100 Dessus Dessous (Paris, FR)
Concept Ayelen Parolin Performers Rudi van der Merwe, Geert Vaes, Ayelen Parolin, Julien Galle-Ferrer, Marcos Simoes Light design Jan Van Gijsel
Production Helga Duchamps vzw — Coproduction Parc de la Villette – Résidences d’Artistes, Centre Chorégraphique National de Montpellier, Pépinières européennes pour jeunes artistes – programme mapXXL — With the support of Direction des Affaires Culturelles de la Ville de Paris – Mission des relations internationales, Cité internationale des Arts, Culture 2000 programme by the European Commission (Directorate-General for Education and Culture) for the mapXXL and danceWEB Europe programmes — Thanks to La Balsamine (Brussels), Nadine (Brussels), Netwerk (Aalst), La Raffinerie (Brussels)