“Champagne is a kind of my overalls” says one of the protagonists of this very freely inspired show by Parade, Léonore Massine’s famous choreography for the Russian Ballets after a booklet by Jean Cocteau, curtain scene signed by Pablo Picasso with music by Erik Satie. Far from reproducing this ballet created in 1917, Marco Berrettini overturns the argument, installing the eight dancers in the space of a gala evening seen from behind the scenes.
This paradoxical, if not uncomfortable, situation in which the performers are placed is for the choreographer a means of playing with the codes of glamor and celebrity, in a society where the spectacle is now everywhere. In this sense, No Paraderan, recreated today, sixteen years after the first performances in 2004, is first of all an emblematic and subversive piece on desire and frustration, a vertiginous abyss of notions of art and spectacle, carried out from start to finish with a very devastating humor meanwhile the specter of banality lurks.
On stage, there are Scott, Bret, Candy, Pearl, Chess, Tiffany, Santiago, Nina, heroes who, as indicated in the title of this play, “they will not parade”. Wonderfully staged, with all their comic peculiarities and their differences, by the dancers of the company * MELK PROD, they could get out of some reality TV show or, on the contrary, apply to be finally engaged, as their status seems improbable. Immersed in a vaporous kitsch, the show has an atmosphere between soft melancholy and light intoxication whispering an aesthetic of Felliniesque allure.
9th January – 16th February 2019
Nanterre-Amandiers, Centre Dramatique National, Nanterre, FR
All images ©Sylvie Friess
Artistic direction Joël Pommerat
With Marco Berrettini, Jean-Paul Bourel, Valérie Brau-Antony, Ruth Childs, Bruno Faucher, Chiara Gallerani, Gianfranco Poddighe
Assistant Chiara Gallerani
Set design Bruno Faucher / Marco Berrettini in collaboration with Jan Kopp
Lights Bruno Faucher
Technical director Nicolas Barrot
Sound Felix Perdreau
Administration – Diffusion Tutu Production – Pauline Coppée
Costumes Angèle Micaux