MANIFESTO BY AKAJI MARO

フランソワ・シェニョ―の存在に、私麿赤兒が見たものは、 瞬時の中の永遠、悪徳・背徳の系譜、逆流する血のエロティスズム だ。 それらを静かに秘めたる彼の肉体が最後に戴冠するものは、いかな るものか! 麿赤兒はその人智では計り知れない価値の戴冠に、司祭としての位 置に立つと言うことだ。 その総体はきたるべき人類の未来を見据え、その未来をいかに生き るかと言う、身を賭したレッスンのダンスでもある。

麿赤兒

What I, Akaji Maro, saw in François Chaignaud was eternity in an instant, the genealogy of vice and immorality, the eroticism of blood flowing backward.
His flesh calmly conceals all that. What will finally come and crown it?
For the crowning of these values unintelligible to man, Akaji Maro will serve as priest.
In the end, this will also be a dance of coming-of-age with our bodies at stake, staring into the future of humanity and questioning the ways to live in it.

Akaji Maro

“The encounter between Akaji Maro and François Chaignaud is the meeting of two bodies with radically different ages, cultures and traditions. Yet, both of them express a vision of dance as the locus for an endless experience of the transformative potentialities of the body. An interwoven portrait of two sensibilities, GOLD SHOWER unfolds multiple layers of meaning, stirring up trouble within flesh, gender and history. A 70-year-old butoh pioneer whose dancing work explores emptiness and the grotesque meets a singular metamorphosis artist, singer and performer working at the crossroads of the classical tradition and non-scenic dances. The result is a parade where seriousness turns into frivolity, where the epicene, extravagance, and outrageousness prevail. Immersed into a state of continuous incandescence, we witness the dancing of a secret rite in which play, idiocy, perversion, and metamorphosis become ways for people to connect, to become aware of each other, to introduce themselves.
Bodies brush past each other, exchanging their voices and their fluids: they become empty, permeable, accessible, at once debilitated and powerful. The rhythmic unity, the vital force they radiate possesses something of a mythological dimension. The spectacle of a continuous rebellion of the flesh through fiction and artifice, GOLD SHOWER generates indelible images of what is most foreign to the body: itself.”

Baudouin Woehl & François Chaignaud

CREDITS
Concept and performance: François Chaignaud and Akaji Maro
Costumes: Romain Brau, Cédrick Debeuf, Kyoko Domoto
Omote (japanese theater mask): Seitaro Ozu
Lights conception: Abigail Flowler
Setting: François Chaignaud, Abigail Fowler, Akaji Maro
Sound manager: Caroline Mas
Japanese interpreter: Mohamed Ghanem
Assistant for Akaji Maro: Naomi Muku (Dairakudakan)
Artistic collaborator for François Chaignaud: Baudouin Woehl Administration/production: Garance Roggero, Jeanne Lefèvre, Léa Le Pichon Diffusion: Mandorle productions
International: A propic

Special thanks to Dominique Laulanné, Aya Soejima, Kei Osawa, Yoko Shinfune and all the team from Dairakudakan

PRODUCTION: MANDORLE PRODUCTIONS
Mandorle productions is subsidised by the Ministère de la Culture (DRAC Auvergne- Rhône-Alpes). François Chaignaud is associate artist in Bonlieu scène nationale Annecy (FR).

COPRODUCTION
Pôle européen de création – Ministère de la Culture/Maison de la Danse en soutien à la Biennale de la Danse de Lyon 2020 (FR); Maison de la musique de Nanterre, scène conventionnée (FR); Bonlieu scène nationale Annecy (FR); Charleroi danse, centre chorégraphique de Wallonie, Brussels (BE); Chaillot – Théâtre national de la Danse, Paris (FR); Le Quartz, Scène nationale de Brest (FR); Teatro Municipal do Porto (PO); Manège, Scène nationale – Reims (FR); Setagaya Public Theatre, Tokyo (JP); The Japan Foundation (JP); Festival d’Automne à Paris (FR) ; Conseil Régional Auvergne Rhône Alpes (FR)

With the support from Le Regard du Cygne, Paris (FR) ; La Villette Paris (FR) ; Nanterre-Amandiers, centre dramatique national (FR)

With the artistic participation of Jeune théâtre national (FR)

AGENDA
under construction

2023
April 2023
03 Gold Shower (François Chaignaud & Akaji Maro) – Tap, Poitiers (FR)
12 Gold Shower (François Chaignaud & Akaji Maro) – Theatre National De Chaillot, Paris (FR)
13 Gold Shower (François Chaignaud & Akaji Maro) – Theatre National De Chaillot, Paris (FR)
14 Gold Shower (François Chaignaud & Akaji Maro) – Theatre National De Chaillot, Paris (FR)
15 Gold Shower (François Chaignaud & Akaji Maro) – Theatre National De Chaillot, Paris (FR)

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Previous dates

2021
April 2021
3 Gold Shower – Charleroi Danse / Legs Festival, Bruxelles (BE)
7 Gold Shower – Théâtre National de Chaillot, Paris (FR)
8 Gold Shower – Théâtre National de Chaillot, Paris (FR)
9 Gold Shower – Théâtre National de Chaillot, Paris (FR)
10 Gold Shower – Théâtre National de Chaillot, Paris (FR)
13 Gold Shower – Le Manège, Reims (FR)
17 Gold Shower – Teatro national do Porto, Porto (PT)
18 Gold Shower – Teatro national do Porto, Porto (PT)

June 2021
8 Gold Shower – Biennale de la danse, Lyon (FR)
9 Gold Shower – Biennale de la danse, Lyon (FR)

October 2021
16 Gold Shower – Setagaya Theater, Tokyo (JP)
17 Gold Shower – Setagaya Theater, Tokyo (JP)
23 Gold Shower – Biwako Hall, Otsu (JP)

Photo: Adelap

For more information, press map, financial and technical conditions please contact Line Rousseau or Marion Gauvent