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Les Urbaines

Festival - Free admission

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A snapshot of new contemporary art aesthetics, a platform for risk-taking without the limits of genre, theme or artistic current : Les Urbaines is back. This year, the festival — a laboratory for emerging artists and a hotbed of entirely free discoveries — will be showcasing more than forty projects in a renewed configuration (Arsenic, Théâtre Sévelin 36, Espace Arlaud, Bourg, Romandie as well as new venues).

 

SATURDAY

 

MAXIME GORBATCHEV & ARNAUD ANGIBEAUD & THOMAS MARDELL (CH/FR)

PianoCamion

Sound Installation 17:00-00:00

Having dismembered a piano, the artists screwed its sound board to the back of a truck and burned the remaining parts of the instrument. The PianoCamion is a strange chimera of modern times, marrying the sounds of the piano — activated by objects hung on the sides of the vehicle—to the move­ments incurred by traffic. This 15­-minute ride will stir up your perceptions and stretch your imagination, inducing a state of hypersensitivity which is rarely experienced in everyday life.

 

LES PANTHÈRES NÉBULEUSES (FR) 
Play 20:00-21:00
In DODOLLYWOOD, Les Panthères Nébuleuses invite the au­dience to meet a football team unlike any other: lethargic and without any ambition. On the set, the players laze about, recount their dreams and smoke shisha. The only obstacle for these chillaxing pros comes in the shape of a corporate coach who explains how to become a millionaire. The only way to face up to the situation is to organize a ritual that will undo the capitalist spell… This humorous performance tackles our liberal economic system’s obsession with cost­ effectiveness.

 

ALEX BACZYNSKI-JENKINS (UK/PL) 

Us Swerve 

Durational Performance 21:00-24:00

In a minimalist environment, Alex Baczynski­-Jenkins stages a constellation of performers on rollerblades who loop for hours, reciting and re­formulating fragments of poetry relat­ing to desire. The different extracts are picked up polyphon­ically by the skaters, thus circulating in the space, tirelessly modified by the direction of the performers’ movements and affects. A gentle current that establishes a languorous dia­logue between attraction and repetition.

 

–NILBOG (CH) 

Gsilenter than 

Concert 20:15-21:00

–Nilbog (“Goblin” spelled backwards) refers to the recent al­liance between L.A.B. and Mr.Peña, two eminent members of ACC­ESS, the rave collective from Basel. Although their re­spective solo projects tend to veer towards hardstyle, jungle and supercharged techno, the result of their partnership is more experimental: a surprising marriage between post­gab­ber and noise music, full of mutations and unpredictability.

 

JEREMY NEDD (CH/US) 

Communal Solo 

Performance 20:15-21:15

Inspired by experiences of mourning, celebration and pro­test—three situations that give rise to gatherings—the Swiss-­American performer and choreographer Jeremy Nedd invites us to a collective experience with an oxymoronic name: Communal Solo. Invoking a backdrop of images that refer to the recurrent violence against the African­-American community in the United States, Nedd counterbalances the seriousness of the theme with his warm and relaxed pres­ence, accompanied by a festive atmosphere and a toe­-tap­ping playlist. An open and constructive act which is essen­tial in this day and age.

 

JOHANNES DULLIN (CH/D)

The best piece of this season 

Play 20:15-21:15

House lights, no set, one person on stage (at once author, ac­ tor and himself): Johannes Dullin has given himself one night to write the best piece of the season. In a gleeful back and forth between the moment of composition and the “here and now” of the performance, Dullin leads us through both sides of the theatrical creative process with a forceful grip. A theatrical success — necessarily unparalleled — that takes us to the outer reaches of the cosmos.

 

MARC PHILIPP GABRIEL & MAIJA KARHUNEN (DE/FI) 

AJIMA

Performance 21:30-22:45

Marc Philipp Gabriel and Maija Karhunen studied choreogra­phy together in Berlin. The character they have created for AJIMA — a performance that spans a wellness tutorial, a cos­mic freakshow and the art of divination — plays on our projec­tions based on physical appearance and a supposed identi­ty. A fascinating and unsettling collective ritual.

 

POUSSY DRAAMA (FR)

Conversation en cercle autour du self­help avec Poussy DRAAMA

Conférence-performance 21:30-22:45

In 2015, the artist­-performer Poussy DRAAMA created the colourful character of DocteurE Duchesne: an itinerant alter­ gynecologist who officiates in an old fire truck, the “Trans­ Utérus Cruising Agency”. Realising the extent of questions relating to gynecology and the sexual health of women, trans and non­-binary individuals, she turned towards an artistic practice that is now closer to self­help than performance. Whether it’s a lecture or a workshop, this is an open occasion for all subjectivities to learn and share, without judgment or discrimination.

 

GEO WYETH (US) 

Juice CrosxxxSing

Performance 00:00-01:00

In Juice CrosxxxSing, the multidisciplinary artist Geo Wyeth, whose work spans mediums including music, performance, installation and video, embodies two enigmatic characters: the Lost Tourist and the Crossing Guard who move across hurdles, merging in bass. Children’s voices permeate a black box. Dutch weather requires raingear. A target becomes a stop sign.