The empire of the senses according to La Ribot in Geneva

The dream of an afternoon of haze. With trees twisted by the wind like protective deities. Between two stumps, on the suddenly distracted grass, a dozen boys and girls kiss, hug, knead, three, four, five. It is the garden of delights, the repeal of property rules, a party night and day, a children's revolution, a bacchanalian island, a hymn to joy imagined by La Ribot, this Madrid artist established in Geneva since the early 2000s.

A series of films plunges you into the heart of Happy Island, an unreal fairyland at the La Bâtie and Grütli festival in Geneva.
The interpreters of this warship belong to Dançando com a Diferença, an Inclusive Dance company based in Madeira Island - Portugal. Each presents an anomaly, a physical or mental peculiarity, which is a limitation, but the possibility of a poetic odyssey. Henrique Amoedo wanted that, when he created the company in 2001.

To bridge the gap, always. Create a posture that stands out, which disturbs the common understanding, which requires the use of other reading keys. This is the work of the ballerina and choreographer La Ribot since the 1990s, an art of standing out - which is marked with Distinguished Pieces, superbly patterned skits, presented in theaters, galleries and museums in Europe. Working with Dancing with the Difference allowed her to pursue this quest.

Escape outside normalities

How is Happy Island? An escape, a gallop beyond normalities, a manifesto of love. In the shadows of the Cotton Club, an irregular piano imprints its law. On this keyboard, a savage uses a feather headdress that offers a black-haired beauty, captive of a wheelchair. She frees herself immediately, crouching down with her Indian feather on her fingers. In the background, in the video images, the dwarf oaks attacked by the fog. In a moment, in a hawkish saxophone, a woman in silver panties will rise and turn, arched like a Venetian bridge, caught by the black felt hat of a fellow escapee.

Libido released

From Happy Island, let's say it's an enchanted geography. See this moon casting a slab in the sky, then another, like so many looks to the stars. Follow the lascivious crosses of this young woman who rejoices in her extravagant dress in red tulle. La Ribot and her interpreters dare to break the veil: they raise the veil of the sexuality of dreams or no personality that has no voice on this subject - as in all others.

Happy Island is the empire of the senses, trendy and cheerful with frills. In the center of the party, there are the already mentioned bacalhau puppies, drunken puppies in action. Simultaneously, on stage, the dancers make up, lying down, a single body, a river of tenderness. At one point in the show, they witness in the movie of this learning of freedom. One said she did not think she could dance on stage and that she was finally born under a lucky star. Happy Island is a geyser. Your breathing is very high.

Alexandre Demidoff

in: Le Temps