"Sheela" is an adaptation of a piece that was created in 2021 for Opéra de Lyon ballet company. Choreographer Fabrice Mazliah creates a piece with six female performers that focusses entirely on their voices, their joint presence and the potential community that they unleash. Inspired by historical working practices in which physical labour was accompanied by singing, "Sheela" expands on an improvisation exercise in which the dancers become aware of their sheer presence. They reveal themselves to and learn from each other by sharing their voices and their songs, their individual movements and heritages within the group.
"Sheela" enables an echo of these traces of movement to be heard and asks: Who or what is shown to the audience in an interflowing corpus that is read as female, in which individuals come together in a greater whole and return the gaze that is focussed on their bodies?
Infos
- Duration: 55 min.
- Language: songs in different languages
- Fri. 08.11. followed by Meet the Artist
- Sat. 09.11., 18.30 Uhr Warm-up
World Premiere
Sponsors and Supporters
Concept, stage, costume: Fabrice Mazliah
Choreography: Fabrice Mazliah in collaboration with the dancers
Dance and singing: Marie Albert, Katja Cheraneva, Viktorija Ilioska, Aoife McAtamney, Patscharaporn Distakul, Ophelia Young
Fabrice Mazliah: concept, choreography, stage, costumes
Voice coach and outside eye: Dalila Khatir
Dramaturgical accompaniment: Anne Kersting
Composition and sound effects: Johannes Helberger
Lighting design and technical direction: Matthias Rieker
Production: Johanna Milz:
Co-production: Künstler*innenhaus Mousonturm
Work of Act is supported by the Cultural Office of the City of Frankfurt
Biography
After studying dance in Geneva, Athens and Lausanne, Mazliah is part of the Nederlands Dans Theater and the Frankfurt Ballett / The Forsythe Company, under William Forsythe. Parallelly he produces own works such as The Ends of Things; The Things of Ends for Theater Basel, Telling Stories – a version for three (2021), The Manufactured Series: 6 Duets (2018-2022), In Act and Thought (2015) for the Forsythe Company, Eifo Efi (2013), Cover up (2011) with the collective MAMAZA, which are presented internationally. In 2024 Mazliah is artist in residence at the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics in Frankfurt. Fabrice teaches ateliers based on research and improvisation and organizes Artist Gatherings and symposiums. His works explore processes of composing embodied thoughts and actions, including poetically reinventing the relationships between our environment and our bodies.