WIM VANDEKEYBUS AND THE DESIRE OF MALE POSSESSION
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IN 1999 AT THE FERRARA’S TEATRO COMUNALE TOOK PLACE THE PLAY “IN SPITE OF WISHING AND WANTING”, WHO IMPRESSED CRITICS AND ALL PEOPLE AROUND THE WORLD.
Pièce’s debut confirmed the extraordinary talent of Wim Vandekeybus, Belgian film maker, choreographer, actor and photographer. He was the main exponent of the Flamish’s wave of the new European choreography born in the ‘90s.
“In Spite of Wishing and Wanting” is an example of surrealism theatre, moved by a strong, virile energy. In fact, we see only male protagonists: ten men’re moving among different languages, from dance to cinema. It’s a purse of the real, expressive gesture, built on a intense and aggressive movement. The muscular bodies of the dancers attract and push away each others to describe the animal desire of the man. We are not talking about misogyny. Vandekeybus wants to talk about a man without thinking about his relationship with women. He wants to talk about the representation of the male desire in dreams, fears and in our unconscious.
In a mix of dance, music and cinema ten performers with a wild, impetuous, and at he same time playful and gullible nature engage dialogue with sensual music created by Davide Byrne, Talking Heads’ ex-leader, and with surrealistic films, like the movie “The Last Words”, inspired by a story of Julio Cortàzar, a Argentine writer.
In particular, “The Last Words” tells about a seller and a tyrannous king, while reality fuses itself with the oniric world: the first one sells the last world when you die and the second one wants to buy it. The situation reaches absurdity because the king wants to buy immaterial thing and even when they cut up the seller’s head, he keeps on talking.
On the stage, therefore, energy and fantasy explode, moving dancers’ group: first men became bucking horses, then dreamers or even furious warriors. The twenty minutes scene where dancers-actors communicate with each other without words is very important and very impressive. Man is an animal and he’s forgotten he has an instinct and primitive impulses. Inside man passion and will co-exist: they are two impulses they’re hiding possession’s anxiety, the most dangerous part of the human being.
“In Spite of Wishing and Wanting” is a breakthrough in the theatre’s world, because it’s a manifest of a new type of theatre dance, more instinctive than stylized. Men are dancing, acting and touching each other through energy explosions in an athletic show (it takes your breath away). Even if dancers’ body is muscular and heavy, they’re as light as a feather while they’re dancing. It’s a show about desire and fear. It’s about that primitive fear of disappearing, of being eaten and becoming nothing. Desire and fear have a deep connection from the first scene yet, where dancers gallop like furious animals.
On 11th and 12th October 2016 at the Teatro Argentina a new cast take up the challenge to make the play alive again at the international Romaeuropa Festival. One more time they take this animal fantasy, masterfully directed in a fusion of medias and languages. Man shows his fragility and his harmony in a poetic and fascinating show, who consecrates again this stravagant auctor among international contemporary dance’s world.