IN SHORT ⟶ Four performers are on stage combining sound, movement and interaction, producing a whirling, playful and absurd energy. The composition, between noise and furious steps, is an experiment on the transformation of the daily noise of our lives into a positive and creative force.
Bless This Mess is the first collective work by choreographer Katerina Andreou, back to Short Theatre after the success of Mourn Baby Mourn (2022). Her new research stems from what the artist calls “constant noise”, a mental and emotional state produced by precariousness, instability and all the doubts that shape life forms.
Can confusion become a creative strategy? Subverting the idea of body’s harmony, Bless This Mess combines disjointed and furious steps with a syncopated energy that embraces playfulness and absurdity. An entropic zone emerges from impatience and cherished weaknesses, marked by the uncontrollable desire to move with others.
In the attempt to reacquire strength and trust, Katerina Andreou assembles sound and movement starting from the “feeling of being exposed” in such a way that vulnerability functions as a catalyser of resistances. To laugh, to enjoy, to protest: let’s do it all together. They are all ways to bless this mess!
Katerina Andreou was born in Athens and currently lives and works in France. Each one of her projects is developed through a specific physical practice and is focused on the search for possible states of presence resulting from the constant negotiation between contrasting or even contradictory duties, fictions or universes, that are often challenged by the notions of authority and censorship. Katerina personally composes the soundscape of her performances that therefore becomes her main dramaturgical tool. In 2016 she was awarded with the Jardin d’Europe Prize at the ImpulsTanz Festival for the solo A Kind of Fierce. She then conceived the solo BSTRD (2018), the duet Zeppelin Bend (2021) with Natali Mandila, the performance Rave to Lament (2021), and more recently Mourn Baby Mourn (2022). She is currently associated artist at the National Choreographic Centre of Caen in Normandy for 2022-2024 and of the Master Program EXERCE in CCN in Montpellier.
conception Katerina Andreou
performance Katerina Andreou, Lily Brieu Nguyen, Baptiste Cazaux, Mélissa Guex
sound Katerina Andreou with Cristian Sotomayor
lights and set Yannick Fouassier
outside eye Costas Kekis
technical direction Thomas Roulleau Gallais
production – touring Elodie Perrin
thanks Jean-Baptiste Veyret-Logerias, Laura Garnier
production BARK
coproducers CCN de Caen en Normandie dans le cadre du dispositif « Artiste associé », Kunstenfestivaldesarts Brussels, Pavillon ADC – Genève (CH), Athens Epidaurus Festival, T2G théâtre de Genevilliers, Festival d’Automne à Paris, Next Festival, les Subs – lieu vivant d’expériences artistiques, Lyon, Maison de la Danse, Lyon – Pôle européen de Création –, KLAP Maison pour la danse à Marseille, CCN de Grenoble dans le cadre de l‘accueil studio, CCNR, Centre chorégraphique national de Rillieux-la-Pape, ICI—CCN Montpellier Occitanie
direction Christian Rizzo
residencies Espace Pasolini, Kunstencentrum BUDA Kortrijk
with the support of Direction des Affaires Culturelles Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, de la Caisse des Dépôts, de Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels
with the support of Fondazione Nuovi Mecenati – Fondazione franco-italiana di sostegno alla creazione contemporanea
ph. Helene Robert
