Premiere August 29th-31st 2009 at La Comédie de Genève - La Bâtie - Festival de Genève, Geneva, Switzerland. Written and Directed: La Ribot. Corps-opérateur: Marie-Caroline Hominal, Delphine Rosay, La Ribot. Director of photography and Lighting Design: Daniel Demont. Set Design and Costumes: La Ribot. Music: Atom™. Music supervision and sound mixing: Clive Jenkins. Editing: Sylvie Rodriguez. Post-production: Massimiliano Simbula. Light, video and sound technicians: Stéphanie Rochat, David Scrufari. Set building: Victor Roy. Photographies of building constructions in Spain: Miguel de Guzmán. Stagehand: Pablo Jobin, Laure Fauser. Falconry Les Aigles du Léman - Jacques-Olivier Travers et Babette. Shooting Santa Caecila rehearsal room - La Comédie de Genève - Switzerland - June/July 2009. Production: Anouk Fürst, La Ribot – Genève. Coproduction Comédie de Genève - Centre dramatique (Genève), La Bâtie - Festival de Genève (Genève), Festival d’Automne à Paris, Les Spectacles vivants - Centre Pompidou (Paris), Fundação Caixa Geral de Depósitos – Culturgest (Lisbonne), Réseau Open Latitudes (Les Halles de Schaerbeek - Latitudes Contemporaines - Le Manège Maubeuge Mons / La Maison Folie - Body Mind - L’Arsenic). With the support of la Ville de Genève, la République et canton de Genève, Pro Helvetia - Swiss Arts Council, Pour-cent culturel Migros, la Corodis and the Loterie Romande. And the Fondation Leenaards and Fondation Ernst Göhner. With the collaboration of Fresnoy, Studio national des arts contemporains. Special thanks to Luc Peter, Gilles Jobin, Edwin Culp, Mélanie Rouquier, Fafa, Olivier Devin, Florent Leduc, Pascale Pronnier, Anne et Nicola Marangon, Emilie Nana, Claude Bourgeois, Heleen Treichler, Lorena Ribera, Family Déco, Théâtre de Carouge, Oskar Gomez-Mata.
Show/ Dance/ Theater
In Llámame Mariachi, 2009, the video Mariachi 17 is followed by a live performance by the three dancers in the video: La Ribot, Marie-Caroline Hominal and Delphine Rosay. The piece’s two parts are complementary opposites: the fast-moving 360-degree spatial games of Mariachi 17, with their privileging of vision over language, are contrasted with an exaggeratedly slowed-down onstage performance involving text and speech.
At centre stage in the second half of Llámame Mariachi is a large table heaped with books. Moving slowly and intently, the dancers consult the volumes and intone impressive-sounding but effectively meaningless quotes and misquotes at the audience: “Contradiction, conflict, space and action sometimes collide in contradictions”, runs one particularly choice example. Sandwiched in between are asides, pratfalls and ridiculous gestures that become increasingly uninhibited and outlandish as the piece progresses. The ludicrous, frilly yellow bra that La Ribot sports over her dress ends up wrapped round her head, and the large cream cake that sits on the table is eventually, inevitably, and very, very slowly pitched onto the floor.
The three performers excel at projecting insecurity – a feeling that their performance may collapse at any moment – whilst clearly knowing precisely what they are doing: expectations about theatrical competence are unsettled, and the idea of intellectual mastery undermined, with sophisticated humour and tremendous skill. In Llámame Mariachi’s opening video, puzzles are posed about the perception of space. In its concluding live section, the questions turn on perceptions of live theatre and the “weight” of performance theory: does a performance have to be “serious”, for us to take it seriously?