FIMFA Lx11

Gisèle Vienne, Dennis Cooper
& Jonathan Capdevielle

France

Jerk

TEATRO MARIA MATOS

13, 14 May at 9.30pm

Friday and Saturday

Direction: Gisèle Vienne Dramaturgy: Dennis Cooper Music: Peter Rehberg (original music), El Mundo Frio of Corrupted Lights: Patrick Riou Performed by and created in collaboration with: Jonathan Capdevielle Recorded voices: Dennis Cooper, Paul P Styling: Stephen O'Malley, Jean-Luc Verna Puppets: Gisèle Vienne, Dorothéa Vienne Pollak Make-up: Jean-Luc Verna, Rebecca Flores Costumes: Dorothéa Vienne Polak, Marino Marchand, Babeth Martin Ventriloquism teaching: Michel Dejeneffe Drawings: Jean-Luc Verna, Courtesy Air de Paris Photography: Alain Monot, Mathilde Darel Administration, production, booking: Bureau Cassiopée, Anne-Cécile Sibué, Lénor Baudouin, Alix Sarrade, Rachel Ciora With the technical crew: of the Quartz - Scène Nationale de Brest Technical direction: Nicolas Minssen Associate producer: DACM With the collaboration of: Le Quartz - Scène Nationale de Brest Co-production: Le Quartz - Scène Nationale de Brest, Centre Chorégraphique National de Franche-Comté à Belfort in the framework of l'accueil-studio and Centro Parraga - Murcia Supports: Ménagerie de Verre in the framework of Studiolab. The company DACM is supported by Drac Rhône-Alpes/Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication, Région Rhône-Alpes, Conseil Général de l'Isère, Ville de Grenoble, and Culturesfrances for international tours. Gisèle Vienne is associated artist at Le Quartz - Scène Nationale de Brest Acknowledgments: Atelier de Création Radiophonique of France Culture, Philippe Langlois and Franck Smith. To Sophie Bissantz for sound efects. Voices and sound efects have been recorded for the Atelier de Création Radiophonique. To Justin Bartlett, Nayland Blake, Alcinda Carreira-Marin, Florimon, Ludovic Poulet, Anne S - Villa Arson, Thomas Scimeca, Yury Smirnov, Scott Treleaven , Galeria Air de Paris, Tim/IRIS, Jean-Paul Vienne Technique: Hand puppets For audiences over: M/16 Time: 55 min. Language: English with subtitles in Portuguese Contains strong language and violent scenes

From a Dennis Cooper Novel.

“Jerk” is an imaginary reconstruction – strange, poetic, funny and somber – of the crimes perpetrated by American serial killer Dean Corll who, with the help of teenagers David Brooks and Wayne Henley, killed more than twenty boys in the state of Texas during the mid-70s.

This show sees David Brooks serving his life sentence. In prison, he learns the art of puppets, which somehow enables him to face up to his responsibility as partner in the crimes. He has written a show that reconstructs the murders committed by Dean Corll, using puppets for all the roles. He performs his show in prison for a class of psychology students from a local university.

Due to the violence and humor of the text, there is an underlying fierceness to the performance. The glove puppet theater is in fact the traditional form used to enact violent illicit subjects. And “Jerk” unabashedly mingles sexuality and violence in the vein of gore aesthetics, thus harking back to the glove puppet repertory.

The text has been staged as a solo for puppeteer, who uses glove puppets and also acts the role of con artist.

The story, however realist it may be, seems to border on unrealism. The play’s apparent realism stems from its linear narration, as well as from its basic true story and from the trickster puppeteer’s total identification with the fictive character of David Brooks.

“Jerk” merges three plays that were produced in collaboration with the American writer Dennis Cooper: “I Apologize” (2004), “Une belle enfant blonde” (2005) and “Kindertotenlieder” (2007).

In these three plays, the links between fantasy and reality are being constantly probed, thereby altering our perception of reality. The more realist “Jerk” puts forth a consistent linear narrative, generating the credibility that undeniably stems from this form. And it is this undeniability that is reexamined by way of our different formal experiences

BIO

Gisèle Vienne was born in 1976, she is franco-austrian and now lives and works in Grenoble and Paris. After graduating in Philosophy, she studied at the puppeteering school École Supérieure Nationale des Arts de la Marionnette. She is a choreographer/director, performer and visual artist. Then she choreographed and staged with Etienne Bideau-Rey: Splendid’s (2000) by Jean Genet, Showroomdummies (2001), Stéréotypie (2003), and Tranen Veinzen (2004). Since 2004, she has choreographed and directed, in collaboration with the writer Dennis Cooper, I Apologize (2004) and Une belle enfant blonde / A young, beautiful blond girl (2005), Kindertotenlieder (2007) and Jerk, a radioplay in the framework of the “Atelier de Creation radiophonique” of France Culture (June 2007) and the play Jerk (2008). In 2009, she created Eternelle Idole with an ice skater and an actor and the rewriting of Showroomdummies with Etienne Bideau-Rey. In July 2010 she presented her new creation This is how you will disappear at Festival d’Avignon. Since 2005, she has been frequently exhibiting her photographs and installations. With Etienne Bideau-Rey, she has written two reviews, Corps/Objet – Sur le rapport du corps au corps artificiel, published by the Centre Chorégraphique National de Grenoble. She is working on an installation which will be presented at Centre d'Art Passerelle in the frame of Festival Anticodes'11 / Quartz, Scène Nationale de Brest and at the gallery Hard Hat in Geneva in May 2011. She is preparing for March 2011 an audio/book "Jerk/Through Their Tears" (editor: DIS/VOIR) in French and English version.

Dennis Cooper is a novelist, poet and critic. He lives in Paris and Los Angeles. He has published eight novels, most recently The Sluts and God Jr., both 2005. In France this books are published by POL. He is a contributing Editor of Art Forum Magazine and the editor of the American publishing imprint Little House on the Bowery. His most recent book is a short fiction collection Ugly Man, published in France by POL this past spring under the title Un type immonde. He has written all the texts in I Apologize (2004), Kindertotenlieder (2007), Jerk (2008), This is how you will disappear (2010) and Une enfant blonde. A Young Beautiful blonde girl (2006), in collaboration with Catherine Robbe-Grillet.

Jonathan Capdevielle was born in 1976 in Tarbes, France. He lives in Paris. He studied drama in Tarbes from 1993 to 1996, then he entered the Ecole Supérieure Nationale des Arts de la Marionnette. He has been involved in several performances such as: Personnage à réactiver, Pierre Joseph (1994), Performance with Claude Wampler (1999), Mickey la Torche by Natacha de Pontcharra, translation Taoufik Jebali, directed by Lotfi Achour, Tunis (2000), Les Parieurs and Blonde Unfuckingbelievable Blond, directed by Marielle Pinsard (2002), Le Golem directed by David Girondin Moab (2004), Le Dispariteur, Le groupe St Augustin, Monsieur Villovitch, Hamlet and Marseille Massacre (atelier de création radiophonique - France Culture), directed by Yves-Noël Genod (2004-2010). Gisèle Vienne’s collaborator since the beginning, he has been performing in all her plays: Jean Genet’s Splendid’s (2000), Showroomdummies (2001 and rewriting 2009) and Stéréotypie (2003), directed by Etienne Bideau – Rey and Gisèle Vienne. And I Apologize (2004), Une belle enfant blonde / A Young, Beautiful Blond Girl (2005), Kindertotenlieder (2007), Jerk, a radioplay (2007,) Jerk (2008), Eternelle Idole (2009) and This is how you will disappear (2010), directed by Gisèle Vienne. In September 2006, he created with Guillaume Marie We are accidents waiting to happen in the Palais de Tokyo. In August 2007, he presented for the first time the performance-show Jonathan Covering during the Festival Tanz im August in Berlin, starting point of his first solo creation Adishatz / adieu, created in November 2009 at Centre Chorégraphique National de Montpellier Languedoc-Roussillon in the framework of Domaines & in January 2010 in CDC Toulouse for the festival C'est de la Danse Contemporaine 2010. In April 2010, he is performer for the radiophonic play of Yves-Noë Genod and Nathalie Quintane, Marseille massacre in the framework of Ateliers de Creation Radiophonique de France Culture.