Press Release: "Witches" explored in powerful solo HUNTED

[Jan McNulty]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Maud Le Pladec/ Okwui Okpokwasili

HUNTED

UK Premiere 

Lilian Baylis Studio, Sadler’s Wells

Thursday 16 & Friday 17 November 2017

Performances at 8pm

Tickets: £17

Ticket office: 020 7863 8000 or www.sadlerswells.com

 

 

HUNTED by French choreographer Maud Le Pladec and New York-based writer and performer Okwui Okpokwasili receives its UK premiere at Sadler’s Wells’ Lilian Baylis Studio on Thursday 16 & Friday 17 November 2017.

 

Inspired by the idea that troublesome, disobedient and independent women have for centuries been labelled “witch”, HUNTED is a chant of words and movement, with music by one of Finland’s foremost contemporary composers, Kalevi Aho. Performed in London by Dorothée Munyaneza, this powerful solo uses storytelling and ritual to re-appropriate the term witch.

 

Created in 2015 for the Aire de Jeu Festival, Lyon, HUNTED is about self-proclaimed witches who don’t actually practice witchcraft, and how society vilifies the unknown.

 

Maud Le Pladec said: “These are the women coming from different geographical and cultural contexts, who for centuries have been considered dangerous and troublesome. The witch is the incarnation of a world of women that capitalism tries to destroy: the heretic, the healer, the disobedient woman… Through witch-hunting, we witness the desire to discipline women and keep them in a state of enslavement toward a feudal and then capitalistic system. This transition makes modernity a matter of discipline: the discipline of women’s bodies. But through reversal of this very power, the re-appropriation of the term ‘witch’ has arisen. The self-proclamation ‘I’m a witch’, by militant artists such as choreographer Mary Wigman or contemporary writer Starhawk, brings the figure of the witch into the ranks of important symbols of feminist and homosexual struggles. The witch thereby becomes an independent, rebellious, marginal, and alternative subject or the woman who speaks out.”

 

Okwui Okpokwasili said: “A hunt implies force and hostility, a capturing. But the capturing requires a dynamic relationship between prey and predator – in a social landscape that marks out a dance of hunger and satiation, fear and cunning, submission and resistance. Humans are considered the most dangerous predator but I wonder if we aren't also our own most vulnerable prey? In a perpetual dance of capturing, what reverberates in the charged space between the audience and the performer?”
 

Maud Le Pladec is an award-winning choreographer and dancer. She has worked extensively with Sadler’s Wells regular and acclaimed French choreographer Boris Charmatz, collaborating with him on the project Roman Photo, and performing in his works Levée des Conflits (2010), Enfant (2011) and Manger (2014).

 

Okwui Okpokwasili creates multidisciplinary projects as a writer, performer and choreographer. In addition to her own acclaimed works she has appeared on stage in New York in productions including Come Home, Charley Patton (for which she won a Bessie Award) and Julie Taymor’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and in films including The Interpreter, The Hoax and I Am Legend.

 

Artistic Programmer Eva Martinez said: “It is a pleasure to share Maud’s work with London. She is at the forefront of a new generation of French choreographers coming into their own, bringing a wider world view to the choreographic landscape.”

 

Free post-show talk: Thursday 16 November
 

NOTES TO EDITORS

 

ABOUT SADLER’S WELLS
Sadler’s Wells is a world-leading creative organisation dedicated to dance in all its forms. With over three centuries of theatrical heritage and a year-round programme of performances and learning activities, its goal is to motivate everyone to experience dance – to take part, learn, experiment and be inspired. Audiences of over half a million come to Sadler’s Wells’ London theatres each year, with many more enjoying its touring productions at partner venues across the UK and around the world, or accessing its content through digital channels. 

 

Sadler’s Wells commissions and presents more new dance work than any other theatre in the world, embracing the popular and the unknown. Since 2005, it has helped to bring over 140 new dance works to the stage, many of them involving its 16 Associate Artists, three Resident Companies and four Associate Companies – the most exciting talents working in dance today. It also nurtures the next generation of talent through its artist development initiatives, and reaches over 25,000 annually through its learning and engagement programmes

 

Located in Islington, north London, the current theatre is the sixth to have stood on the site since it was first built by entrepreneur Richard Sadler in 1683. The venue has played an illustrious role in the history of theatre ever since with The Royal Ballet, Birmingham Royal Ballet and English National Opera having all started at Sadler’s Wells. Sadler’s Wells is a charity and a National Portfolio Organisation, currently receiving 10% of its revenue from Arts Council England.

 

www.sadlerswells.com

 

 

ABOUT MAUD LE PLADEC

Maud le Pladec is director of Centre Chorégraphique National d’Orleans. She trained in contemporary dance in 1999, joining the e.x.e.r.c.e program at the Centre Chorégraphique of Montpellier. In 2001, she founded Leclubdes5 with Mickaël Phelippeau, Typhaine Heissat, Virginie Thomas and Maeva Cunci. While creating many of her own works, she has also continued to perform around the world, working with choreographers including Takiko Iwabuchi, Guillermo Bothello, Patricia Kuypers, Bojana Mladenovic and Dusan Muric. 

 

She received the Choreographic Revelation prize from the French arts guild, Syndicat de la Critique Française, for her work Professor, a choreographic piece for three performers to the music of Fausto Romitelli. She was invited by Les Subsistances in Lyon to create two pieces based on the musical works of David Lang and Julia Wolfe. Ominous Funk and Demo, created especially for the occasion, were the starting point of a long-term project based on the music of Bang on a Can, a New York based contemporary music collective.

 

Maud Le Pladec has worked extensively with acclaimed French choreographer Boris Charmatz, collaborating with him on the project Roman Photo, and performing in his works Levée des Conflits (2010), Enfant (2011) and Manger (2014).

 

She holds a degree in choreographic culture after writing and defending a dance research dissertation on the analysis of choreographic work from the performer’s posture.

 

 

ABOUT OKWUI OKPOKWASILI 

Okwui Okpokwasili is a New York-based writer, performer and choreographer. In partnership with collaborator Peter Born, Okpokwasili creates multidisciplinary projects that are raw, intimate experiences. Their first New York production, pent-up: a revenge dance premiered at Performance Space 122 and received a 2010 New York Dance and Performance Bessie Award for Outstanding Production. An immersive installation version of that piece was featured in the 2008 Prelude Festival. Their second collaboration, Bronx Gothic, continues to tour nationally and internationally. 

 

As a performer, Okpokwasili frequently collaborates with award-winning director Ralph Lemon, including: How Can You Stay in the House All Day and Not Go Anywhere?; Come Home, Charley Patton (for which she won a Bessie Award); a duet performed at The Museum of Modern Art as part of On Line: Drawing Through the Twentieth Century; and Scaffold Room. She has appeared as an actor in many productions, including: Nora Chipaumire’s Miriam; Julie Taymor’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream; Kristin Marting’s SOUNDING; Young Jean Lee’s LEAR; Richard Foreman’s Maria Del Bosco; Richard Maxwell’s Cowboys and Indians; and Joan Dark (The Goodman Theater/The Linz European Capital of Culture). Film credits include The Interpreter, The Hoax and I Am Legend.

 

Okpokwasili has been selected for a number of artist programs and awards, including: The French American Cultural Exchange (2006-2007); MANCC Choreographic Fellowship (2012); Baryshnikov Arts Center Artist-in-Residence (2013), New York Live Arts Studio Series (2013); Under Construction at the Park Avenue Armory (2013); New York Foundation for the Arts’ Fellowship in Choreography (2013); Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Extended Life Program (2014); and The Foundation for Contemporary Arts’ artist grants, Dance (2014). Okpokwasili is a graduate of Yale University.