As part of the Festival TransAmériques
They dream of community. They probe each other with eyes and hands, they cling to each other, striving for black magic. In a night club – or is it a cellar? – they take part in an underground ceremony that promises to lead them to a mystical fusion of the initiated and the curious. To the sound of throbbing basses, piano and drums,
Until Our Hearts Stop by Meg Stuart sheds light on the impossible encounters that define the human condition.
In a décor that borrows the lustrous purple and black velvet of magic shows, dancers and musicians invent strange rituals. They make modesty and shame disappear, awaken sources of love and hospitality, seek warmth and tenderness in isolation from the outside world. Whether an empathic healing circle or a mystical, utopian get-together, their bizarre games reveal an irrepressible need for intimacy, as well as the discomfort, awkwardness and violence that need to be exorcized. A belief in magic, or the loss of all illusion?
Meg Stuart: Until Our Hearts Stop
Meg Stuart
Her early work, notably
No Longer Readymade (1993) established her reputation on the European scene, and her focus on the vulnerability of the body and the individual. That exploration of fragility, that frailty at the human core, inspired the name of her company, Damaged Goods, founded in 1994 in Brussels. Together they have worked on over thirty dance pieces, some of which were presented in Montreal to enthusiastic audiences:
Maybe Forever (FTA, 2008),
Built to Last (FTA, 2014) and more recently the solo
Hunter (Usine C, 2016).
Meg Stuart has instigated several interdisciplinary projects that combine video, improvisation, installations and in situ performance. Each piece is a pretext for multiple collaborations, a rejuvenation of the vocabulary of dance, often navigating the tension between dance and theatre.
Her exceptional qualities as a choreographer, dancer and teacher have led to numerous distinctions, including a Bessie Award for her 2004 piece
Forgeries, Love and Other Matters, created in collaboration with Benoît Lachambre and Hahn Rowe. She also received the 2014 Grand prix de la danse de Montréal for her outstanding contribution to the advancement of dance, and most recently La Biennale di Venezia awarded her with the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement 2018.
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