Three short solos by Karine Ponties about this vertical being, absurd and fluttering in the winds: the Scarecrow. A poet of ancient times who still reigns from the corner of the field, it is difficult to describe the scarecrow: an impostor, a bogeyman, an ogre, a phantom, a protester, a crucifix, a nothrough sign, a tower, an hourglass… „For me, a scarecrow is both a touching and contradictory figure, a lonely soldier of terror who has never scared anyone. He belongs to the imagination. This vertical being is man’s double, a self-portrait that does not speak its name, a no-through sign, and a protester who opens his arms to us when he is not hanged, crucified or bound.“

„The first piece, lasting only twenty minutes, was a wonderful display of dazzling delicacy. Alone on stage, accompanied by the original music and sound track of David Monceau, one dancer, Jaro Vinarsky, carrying a long bamboo stick across his shoulders suggestive of the curved horizon, was a scarecrow of the fields put to dance by Karine Ponties. Tossed by the wind, thrown to the ground like a rag or rising like a flame, this funambulist performed a mad pantomime that amazed and elicited admiration.“
Jean-Dominique BURTIN – la République du Centre, 22. 12. 2008 - Havran

Karine Ponties is one of the most famous choreographers in Europe, who has worked with many Slovak dancers as well. In her 15 years of choreographing for the Company, she has created over thirty works. Three solo performances called Babil, Raven and Fidèle à l’éclair represent the variety of topics and dance forms of the Dame de Pic ensemble.

Cast: Jaro Viňarský, Claudio Stellato, Eric Domeneghetty
Production: Dame de Pic / Cie Karine Ponties
Coproduction: Centre Chorégraphique National d’Orléans, O Espaço do Tempo de Montemor-O-Novo (Portugal), Théâtre Les Tanneurs (Belgium)
With the support of Ministère de la Communauté française Wallonie-Bruxelles de Belgique – Service de la danse

Performed for the first in Slovakia. Apart from Žilina, it will be presented in Banska Bystrica (10. 6.) and Košice (12. 6.).

Babil

A body rising atop its own chaos, one could say carried upon the legs of a complex disease. A perforated identity, a pierced thought, a language full of holes, practiced from the birth of the tongue. Breathy words, a new body, a project of exile, a dream in action, until the end.

The metamorphosis of the raw material of the body, like that of an action word that questions the bond between pleasure and pain.

From his first to his last steps, man tries, after all, only to remain standing. From the earth to the backbone, verticality is a rule as well as a question.

As if he’d never stopped being born.

Conception and choreography: Karine Ponties
Interpretation and text: Eric Domeneghetty
Composer: David Monceau
Light design: Julie Petit-Etienne
Costumes: Samuel Dronet
Technical direction: Guillaume Fromentin

Havran

A body carries the curved horizon on his back. A sign chronicled in black ink on a landscape, caught by a wind that changes it into numerous shapes, as concrete as they are abstract.

A being in perpetual change who tries to ground himself in a framework by simulating the animal from which he is supposed to be distant. Open to the four winds, permanently traversed by draughts. Breath circulates through the openings of his body, turning head over heel. Hopelessly open.

Faithful sentinel of deserted fields, whose survival is based on constant self-reinvention. Recalling, as well, new attempts to repel our modern times, where there is no better option than to try with scarecrows truer to nature: the body of a dead bird exposed in posture of alarm, ready for take-off.

Conception and choreography: Karine Ponties
Interpretation: Jaro Vinarsky
Composer: David Monceau
Light design: Florence Richard
Costumes: Samuel Dronet
Technical direction: Guillaume Fromentin

Fidèle à l’éclair

The body of a bogeyman is composed of many kinds of alarming characters (such as soldiers), all with the purpose of frightening children. His role is often to warn us of dangerous moments or places. He is an entanglement of arms and legs, as if pushed by a strong wind. He is stretched to extremes.

He comes and goes with strange gestures, sudden obliterations and expansions, giving the impression of some kind of otherworldly being that would be weakened by the approach of a human face.

He takes as his duty to be a righter of wrongs, not to languish on his stake. He was born that way, in a fit of anger and in a time rage.

Conception and choreography: Karine Ponties
Interpretation: Claudio Stellato
Light design: Florence Richard
Costumes: Samuel Dronet
Music: God Speed You Black Emperor
Technical direction: Guillaume Fromentin

Performances also admissible for children over 6.
Length of each solo / 20 minutes – Length of the evening program / 60 minutes

www.damedepic.be

Without language barriers.

Admission: 5,00 / 3,00 € (adults / students)
Tickets booking: rezervacie@stanica.sk, 041 – 56 23 564