BELL END by Mathilde Carmen Chan Invernon is a physical, political and sound performance that exposes and subverts toxic masculinity. Through humour, repetition and saturation, it turns irritation into awareness and irony into an instrument of power and resistance. The performers start from the figure of the connard, present in everyday gestures, words and typical male attitudes, dominating and imposing. On stage, they turn this perspective upside down: no longer the object of the dominant gaze, they observe it, deconstruct it and appropriate it, creating an alphabet of micro-gestures and micro-words that embody the behaviour of the connard. Awkward, clumsy postures and deliberately shapeless costumes combine to create a comic, disturbing body that intrusively takes up space, echoed by a soundtrack that mixes commonplace words and interjections with ventriloquy techniques, creating a feeling of disorientation and disconnection.
Mathilde Invernon is a Franco-Spanish actress, dancer and choreographer based in Switzerland. Trained at La Manufacture – Haute école des arts de la scène in Lausanne, she develops a practice at the intersection of theatre, dance and performance. As a performer, she collaborates with artists such as La Ribot within LaRibot ensemble, Kuro Tanino, Trajal Harrell, Pascal Rambert and El Conde de Torrefiel, and performs in theatres, festivals and museums across Europe as well as in film. Alongside this, she develops her own stage projects. Her pieces often take the form of minimalist setups exploring the tensions between voice and body, visible and invisible, and dynamics of domination, through a physical language marked by repetition and endurance. In 2023, she founded the company Carmen Chan, with which she created her first work, BELL END. The piece has been presented in numerous festivals and venues across Europe, including at Santarcangelo, the Festival de Marseille, Spektakel Theatre Zurich, La Bâtie in Geneva, SUBS in Lyon and TNT in Barcelona, as well as at Timbre4 in Buenos Aires, and is currently continuing its tour with upcoming dates in Valencia, Milan, Rome and Togo. A new creation is currently in development.
concept, direction Mathilde Carmen Chan Invernon
performance Arianna Camilli, Mathilde Carmen Chan Invernon
stage management Marie Prédour, Hugo Cahn and Laurie Gerber
lighting design Justine Bouillet and Loïc Waridel
set design Andrea Baglione
costumes Andrea Baglione and Mathilde Invernon
sound design Aho Ssan and Loïc Waridel
vocal coach François Renou
artistic collaboration Maud Blandel
outside eyes Anna-Marija Adomaityte, Piera Bellato
costume making Charlotte Lépine
set design assistance Antonie Oberson, Gaëlle Chérix
production Cie Carmen Chan, Christine Maupetit
co-production Emergentia – temps fort pour la création chorégraphique émergente réalisée par L’Abri, le TU et le Pavillon ADC Genève, La Bâtie Festival
with the support of La loterie Romande, Fondation Engelberts, Ernst Göhner Stiftung, Corodis, Canton de Genève, ProHelvetia
Mathilde Invernon / Compagnie Carmen Chan is present at ST26 thanks to the support of the Istituto Svizzero
ph. Matthieu Croizier