The Monsters
Cas Public celebrates 30 years of creation with The Monsters, a production in semidarkness from whose shadows emerge the monsters that inhabit our childhood imagination, the most disturbing of which continue to haunt us as we age.
This project marks the first artistic collaboration between Choreographer Hélène Blackburn and Lighting Designer Lucie Bazzo. Together they conjure a universe where darkness and light synergistically interact and converse. Light, lighting, shadows, reflections, ghostlike colours: these intangible forces come together and sculpt the dancing bodies, transforming the performers into alchemists who have the power to bring light out of darkness. Immersed in the atmospheric music of the Montreal trio Dear Criminals, The Monsters twists the known into the unknown; the familiar becomes strange and the disturbing once again becomes comforting. From illuminated objects to play with reflections, unexpected and surprising elements come alive and follow each other in delicate succession, deceiving our sense of perception. Vulnerability, passion and fierceness are at odds, giving way to the contours of a space where small fears, strange fascinations and vivid pleasures intermingle.
credits
Choreography and Artistic Direction Hélène Blackburn Music Dear Criminals Lighting Design Lucie Bazzo in collaboration with Hélène Blackburn and Étienne Fournier Set Design Hélène Blackburn and Lucie Bazzo Costumes Michael Slack Animations Marjolaine Leray Technical Direction Emmanuel Landry Photos Alex Paillon
The Monsters is a creation of Cas Public in co-production with Lucie Bazzo and l'Agora de la danse. This creation has benefited of a creation residencies : Agora de la danse (Montreal, Canada), Royal Opera House (London, United Kingdom), Teatralia (Madrid, Spain) and Théâtre Paul Eluard (Bezons, France). The company would like to thank dancers Alexander Ellison, Cai Glover, Daphnée Laurendeau, Carson McDougall, Danny Morissette and Jaym O’Esso for their collaboration in the creation of this work.
