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Premiere Mai 18th-19th 2011 - Théâtre de Hautepierre / Pôle Sud for the occasion of Festival Nouvelles – Strasbourg, France. PARAdistinguidas – 4th series of distinguished Pieces. Written and Directed: La Ribot. Performers: Ruth Childs, Laetitia Dosch, Marie-Caroline Hominal, La Ribot, Anna Williams. Set Design: La Ribot, Victor Roy. Lights Design: Eric Wurtz. Sound Engineer: Clive Jenkins. Costumes: Vivienne - Jean-Paul & Cie. Stage Assistant: Margaux Monetti, Magda Ptasznik. With the participation of Teresa Calo. Production: La Ribot - Genève. Manager Rares Donca. Production assistants: Catherine Esteves-Maffei, Clémentine Küng. Accounting: Yves Bachelier. In association with Nicky Childs (Artsadmin, London). La Ribot is an Artsadmin associate artist. Distribution agent for Spain Angel Varela. Coproduction: Comédie de Genève - Centre dramatique, Genève, Festival d’Automne à Paris, Les Spectacles vivants - Centre Pompidou, Paris, Théâtre Pôle Sud, Strasbourg, Aichi Triennale 2010, Nagoya, Japon. Produced in association with Künstlerhaus Mousonturm, Frankfurt. With the support of Loterie Romande, Ernst Göhner Foundation, Leenaards Foundation and Pour-cent culturel Migros. La Ribot is supported by Ville de Genève, République et canton de Genève and Pro Helvetia - Swiss Arts Council. La Ribot is artist in residence at Théâtre Pôle Sud - Strasbourg for 2011. Special thanks to Emmanuelle de Montgazon, Anne Bisang, Delphine Rosay, Gilles Jobin, Susana Panadés Diaz, Isabelle Rigat, Martin Roehrich, Tidiani N’Diaye, Louis-Clément da Costa, Mélanie Rouquier, Pedro Jimenez Morras, Lorena Ribera, Louise Roy, Cosmin and Doina Popa, José Luis Montes Matesanz, the team of La Comédie de Genève, the Villa Kujoyama (Kyoto, Japan), the Villa Bernasconi (Geneva), the Département de la Culture de la Ville de Genève. Titles in order of representation : n35 Katatsumuri to kaki Distinguida: La Ribot Extras: 20. Translation and japanese voice: Chiyo Ogino. Sound design: Clive Jenkins, La Ribot n41 Huan Lan Hong Distinguidas: Anna Williams, La Ribot, Marie-Caroline Hominal, Ruth Childs, Laetitia Dosch Extras: 3 n37 Chairs 2011 Distinguida: Ruth Childs Extras: 20. Costume: Pepe Rubio. Piano: Anatoly Vedernikov n38 Benny’s pin-ups Distinguidas: Marie-Caroline Hominal, Ruth Childs, Laetitia Dosch, Anna Williams, La Ribot Original music: Clive Jenkins n43 Another Hors Champ Distinguida: Laetitia Dosch Film: La Ribot. Text: La Ribot, Laetitia Dosch n44 Forex Extras: 20 n39 Miss Raped Distinguida: Marie-Caroline Hominal Extras: 20. Costume: La Ribot n36 Angle dance Distinguidas: Marie-Caroline Hominal, Anna Williams, Ruth Childs, Laetitia Dosch, La Ribot Extras: 12. Music: Atom™ n40 The Exchange Distinguidas: Anna Williams, Marie-Caroline Hominal, Ruth Childs, Laetitia Dosch, La Ribot Extras: 8. Music: Atom™ n42 La Revolución Distinguidas : Marie-Caroline Hominal, La Ribot, Laetitia Dosch, Ruth Childs Extras: 20. Texts: Marie-Caroline Hominal, La Ribot, Laetitia Dosch, Ruth Childs
Show / Dance / Theater
The ten pieces in PARAdistinguidas, 2011, bring the tally of distinguished Pieces to forty-four and stretch the format in new directions. Picking up the question posed a decade earlier when Anna Williams performed Más distinguidas (Anna y las Más distinguidas, 2002), they explore what happens when dancers other than La Ribot take on the distinguished Pieces format. in a huge set Anna Williams is back in action, accompanied by Marie-Caroline Hominal, Ruth Childs, Laetitia Dosch and La Ribot herself, plus twenty “extras” who serve as stage crew, dancers, singers, slaves, “the masses” and more besides.
Some of PARAdistinguidas’ episodes clearly look back to earlier distinguished Pieces. In Chairs 2011 (Nº37) Ruth Childs settles a single folding chair around her waist, recalling the initial action of Distinguished Piece No. 14 (1996) – but then, helped by the extras, she loads herself up with another thirteen. The end result is impressive and surreal: she looks like a Tadashi Kawamata sculpture, but a mobile one, poised on a pair of human legs. In Benny’s Pin-Ups (No. 38), Williams, Childs, Dosch and Hominal develop the “fan dance” strategy underlying Fatelo con me (No. 2, 1993) into a complex fast-action routine. Nude, they trade a comical assortment of objects with one another and use them to “cover their modesty”. The operation largely fails, of course, and their anarchic activity becomes a subtle satire on the prudery of burlesque.
Reflections on cinema, performance and labour link the ten pieces. In the lively Angle Dance (No. 36) dancers and extras pitch in together in a Busby-Berkeley-style routine: dance as a factory production-line process. In the unsettling The Exchange (No. 40) the dancers become dominatrices and instruct five extras to take up a series of humiliating poses that recall both Sadeian scenarios and classical ballet pas-de-deux. Interweaving five separate performances on stage simultaneously, La Revolución (No. 42) forms a splendidly chaotic finale to PARAdistinguidas, and satirises various aspects of “politically engaged” performance – for example, the paradox of directing theatre and cinema extras to “act like revolutionaries”. However, running throughout the main action in PARAdistinguidas is Distinguished Piece no. 41, Huan Lan Hong, which is performed in a small illuminated booth overlooking the stage. Inside is an electric sewing machine that cast members take turns to keep clattering: a scenario of sweated labour that’s presented without irony and that serves in its turn to unsettle the security of the sceptical, satirical point of view.