Mailles

Dorothée Munyaneza

Past event

Price: $30*
Genres: Dance, Music
Season: Fall 2023
DATE: NOV 2-4
TIME: THU-SAT, 8:30 PM
RUNTIME: Approx. 80 minutes, no intermission
COUNTRY: Rwanda, France
Program: Download Program Notes (PDF)

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About

Renowned choreographer, singer, and author Dorothée Munyaneza brings Mailles to REDCAT. In this symphony for five African and Afro-descendant female and non-binary voices, Munyaneza seeks to weave the fabric of their stories in collaboration with the designer and visual artist Stéphanie Coudert. The costumes and the material itself become the through line for what happens onstage, raising questions about the feminine and bodily freedom. Mailles is a women’s show united onstage in order for their different paths to be heard, as well as the violence of their life stories and history itself. Munyaneza enables audiences to share in the combat that these women have been waging in spaces where they often face rejection. Mailles is a celebration of female might, a driving force in art as much as in life.

Presented in multiple languages, including French, Kinyarwanda and Swahili, with English surtitles.

The program includes a post-performance talk on November 3 with Dorothée Munyaneza, Ife Day, Yinka Esi Graves, Asmaa Jama and Nido Uwera.

Through the very act of turning the pain into art, the sorrow into song and dance and story, Munyaneza transmutes, as do the blues, the badness into stepping stones towards a kind of grace.

—

J.C. Wright, Stagebuddy

Coproduction: Théâtre de la Ville - Paris, Festival d’Automne à Paris, Charleroi danse - Centre Chorégraphique de Wallonie-Bruxelles, Châteauvallon - Scène nationale, Théâtre de Saint-Quentinen-Yvelines - Scène nationale, Le Grand T - Théâtre de Loire-Atlantique, CCN Ballet National de Marseille (Accueil Studio 2020), NEXT Festival / La Rose des Vents - Scène nationale Lille Métropole Villeneuve d’Ascq, Théâtre National de Bretagne, Théâtre de Nîmes - Scène conventionnée d’intérêt national - Art et Création - Danse Contemporaine.

With the support of DRAC Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, Ministère de la Culture, Fonds de dotation du Quartz - Scène nationale de Brest, La Chartreuse de Villeneuve lez Avignon - Centre national des écritures contemporaines, de la SPEDIDAM, du Département des Bouches du Rhône et de la Ville de Marseille, Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels.

Mailles is part of the Albertine Dance Season and received support from Villa Albertine.

about the artist

Dorothée Munyaneza

Dorothée Munyaneza is a multi-disciplinary artist using music, song, text, and movement to deal with rupture as a dynamic force. Munyaneza draws from real stories, seizing body, memory, and our times to create a space of resonance.

Her style of creating and performing on stage is directly inspired by what life has so intensely given her. Her artistic research draws from the diversity of her cultural heritage — growing up in Rwanda until age 12, the experience of the 14 years spent in London, her move to Paris followed by her settling in Marseille, but more so by her appetite for encounters.

Dorothée Munyaneza sang since her childhood, trained at the Jonas Foundation in London, and studied music and social sciences in Canterbury, where she became certain that music and sound were pivotal in her work.

In 2006, when she met François Verret, they collaborated on Sans Retour, Ice, Cabaret, and Do you remember, no I don’t. Since then, other collaborations have included Radouan Mriziga, Alain Mahé, Jean-François Pauvros, Robyn Orlin, Ko Murobushi, Nan Goldin, Stéphanie Coudert, Rachid Ouramdane, Maud Le Pladec, Alain Buffard, Maya Mihindou, and Ben Lamar Gay.

In Marseille in 2013, Munyaneza founded her company Kadidi. Its repertoire included Samedi Détente (2014), Unwanted (2017), Mailles, (2020) and a capella (2022).

In 2020, Dorothée Munyaneza translated Hopelessly Devoted and Inconditionnelles (published by L’Arche Éditeur), both by Kae Tempest (formerly known as Kate Tempest). In 2021, the Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord in Paris invited her to stage Inconditionnelles. It’s set to premiere in fall 2024.