The portrait symbolizes a kind of necessity — the urge to capture, to grasp an elusive identity, to represent it in order to keep it alive. Inspired by the works of Cindy Sherman, Francesca Woodman, and the portraits of Amedeo Modigliani, among others, Portrait traces a path between appearance and disappearance. Like a museum of selfies, the piece plays with the sensation of time searching for an altered state between immediacy and eternity, beauty and horror. Four figures play with their image — as if facing both the audience and a mirror. From virtual bodies to glass-like bodies, sound and movement morph and distort, revealing fractured identities. Portrait is a quartet where a self-portrait is a pose/ a pause, a fraction within movement. The black box recalls the camera obscura in which a series of strange and disturbing portraits are revealed.
Concept & choreography Rebecca Journo
Created in collaboration with & performed by Vera Gorbacheva, Rebecca Journo, Lauren Lecrique, Véronique Lemonnier
Sound creation & live musician Mathieu Bonnafous
Scenography Guillemine Burin des Roziers, Jules Bourret et Rebecca Journo
Light design & technical direction Jules Bourret
Costume Coline Ploquin
Artistic advise Raphaëlle Latini, Tomeo Vergès
Production La Pieuvre · with the accompaniment of cie K622 - Mié Coquempot in 2022
Co-production Paris Réseau Danse, Collectif 12, Les Petites Scènes Ouvertes, Le Gymnase - CDCN Roubaix Hauts-de-France, 3 bis F - Centre d’arts contemporains, Le pôle chorégraphique de Royaumont, L'Échangeur - CDCN Hauts-de-France, CCN de Tours (dans le cadre de l’Accueil studio 2022), La Briqueterie CDCN du Val-de-Marne (dans le cadre de l’accueil studio 2022), Le manège Scène Nationale de Reims
Support & residencies L'échangeur - CDCN, Théâtre de L’oiseau-mouche, L’Atelier de Paris / CDCN, Le Regard du Cygne
Public partners Ministère de la Culture - DRAC Île-de-France, de la Région Ile-de-France et de la Caisse des dépôts
La Pieuvre was a company in residence at the Paris Réseau Danse in 2021-2022, at L'Echangeur CDCN from 2021 to 2024, and Rebecca Journo is a companion artist at Manège, Scène Nationale de Reims in 2022—23.
La Pieuvre has been accompanied and supported by Danse Dense since 2019 and Collective 12 since 2020.
