NOCES DE VERS

«It’s about a ritual. It could very well be a wedding. A strange and improbable wedding. A wedding outside of society. A cruel wedding. A wedding out of time. The union of immobile bodies. The union of human beings. A marriage beyond religion. An anti-social marriage. Between a valid and a disabled person. Between Yann Marussich and Kamil Guenatri. There is no pity to be had. Pity is a form of power over onathor, by believing ourselves to be superior to what is in front of us and which disturbs us. No one is superior ».
Yann Marussich

For Yann Marussich, immobility is an aesthetic choice: it has characterized his performances for over twenty years. Kamil Guenatri, on the other hand, did not choose it: due to an illness, he lost the use of his muscles. Immobility has thus become the starting point of his performances. The work resulting from their collaboration evokes the celebration of a unlikely wedding: the union of two immobile bodies in a sort of poetic ritual that the artists share with the public. Noces de Vers is a creation in a triptych form, each part is a performance in itself.


L'ACCEPTATION DU MARIAGE - Part 1

At the beginning, the audience is not invited to enter the auditorium, it stands outside. The blinds open like a curtain on the large windows and we discover Kamil Guenatri and Yann Marussich in their white wedding suits. Slowly, Kamil "undresses" Yann with the sound of his voice and the extension of his body that his assistant is. Accompanied by festive ululations, the audience follows the young couple into the room like a bridal procession. The symbolic ritual of rice throwing invites itself in the celebration, progressively covering the immobile bodies of the two performers lying on a conjugal couch, a delicate veil surrounded by the probable banquet glasses. A hypnotic and sensitive experience follows, a "sober and slow ritual"; the exploration of the two entwined bodies. A union sealed in the immobility that only the rain of rice manages to disturb.

"L'acceptation du mariage" was created on May 14th, 2021 in Geneva, at the Pavillon ADC (Association pour la Danse Contemporaine) as part of Out of the Box - Biennale des Arts inclusifs.

Photos © Sarah Maitrot