Ophelia-s
What if Ophelia were not dead? Four women driven by a shared force wander through reflections of water present both on stage and on screen. These troubled currents double their bodies, at once freeing them from gravity and exerting a destructive attraction on them. Starting from the Shakespearean figure of Ophelia, who drowned, the performance questions this ideal of beauty of a woman who is both victim and object of desire, through four contemporary incarnations.
Four drowned women, taken away from their own death, lying on the shore, seem to awaken. Gathered around a dark pool of water from which projected images emerge, they attempt to reconstruct the supposed suicide of Hamlet’s gentle fiancée. But it is their own faces they see in the water, each of them embodying in turn, and sometimes redundantly, the representations of femininity that float within our unconscious. And when they fall into the trap of Pre-Raphaelite paintings that idealise the bound woman, it is in order to emerge from them together, alive and united.
Concept and Choreography Nicole Mossoux
Direction Nicole Mossoux in collaboration with Patrick Bonté
Performance and Artistic Collaboration Anne-Cécile Chane-Tune, Colline Libon, Frauke Mariën and Shantala Pèpe
Original Music Thomas Turine
Scenography Johan Daenen assisted by Johanna Daenen
Costumes Jackye Fauconnier assisted by Marine Stevens
Costume Making Nicole Moris
Dressers Lydie Fourneau and Élodie Pulinckx
Make-up Nina Vial in collaboration with Valérie Locatelli
Lighting Designer Patrick Bonté
Collaboration Dramaturgy Manon Dumonceaux
Film Director and DoP Sylvain Dufayard
First Assistant Director Romain Lhote
Gaffer Bert Jonckheere
Underwater Operator Olivier Martin
Underwater Camera Assistant Alexandra Brixy
Camera Assistant Laure Massiet
Apnea Coach Alexis Servaes
Synchronised Swimming Trainer Lisa Ingenito
Sound Technician Fred Miclet or Tom Falaschi
Video Technician and Stage Management Léopold De Neve
Lighting Technician and Technical Direction Léopold De Neve
Projection Consultant Stefano Serra
Technical Support Camillo De Lellis, Baptiste Leclère, Bartira Pereira and Luca van het Groenewoud
Interns Camille Vandevelde and Nicolas Lefebvre
Special thanks Bertrand Bodart, Apolline Collard, Ophélie Collard, Marie-Jeanne Dieudonné, Eric Dumonceaux, Marie-Paule Goblet and Agnès Legrain
Production Compagnie Mossoux-Bonté, in coproduction with Charleroi danse – Centre chorégraphique de la Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles, Escher Theater – Esch-sur-Alzette, Théâtre les Tanneurs – Brussels, La Coop asbl and Shelter Prod. With support from Taxshelter.be, ING, the Federal Belgium Government Tax-Shelter, Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles, dance department and from Wallonie-Bruxelles International.
