5,4,3,2,1 j’existe

By

Sacha Ribeiro, Alice Vannier

Performed by

Sacha Ribeiro, Alice Vannier

Sacha Ribeiro and Alice Vannier take to the stage together to explore the possibility of changing roles, changing places. This is their way of making the stage into a place to search for freedom and question gender stereotypes.

One night, Sacha Ribeiro and Alice Vannier both had the same dream: a play in which Alice wore an evening dress and Sacha a two-piece suit. By the time the dream performance was over, the two actors had swapped outfits. The actor was wearing the dress, the actress the jacket, shirt, and trousers…
Could this dream have something to do with suppressed yearnings? With the norms that shape masculinity and femininity in our society? These two artists wrote 5-4-3-2-1 J’existe (même si je ne sais pas comment faire) in an attempt to understand exactly who they are. For an hour, together they try to work out how to live in spite of their constraints, failures, awkwardness, and lack of understanding of themselves and of others. They are trying to redefine what it is that makes them unique. To transform their doubts into a way of reclaiming themselves – and the future.

“Running to avoid putting down roots, running around the world, running in the streets, running until we are out of breath… Stretching our limits, running wild, making mistakes, falling down… At the risk, ever-present, of running into catastrophe.”

This is the motto of Courir à la Catastrophe, a young company from Lyon who won the Prix Célest’1 in 2019 and took centre stage from the 4^th to the 16^th of January with three productions, including one original creation. This is an opportunity to discover the work of this company which takes on political issues to create theatre that, rather than an escape from real life, is a full immersion into it – performances which are constantly searching, rummaging, turning things inside out, trying to dissect life’s mechanisms to gain a better understanding of who we are and what we do.