New York Live Arts Will Present Premieres From Gisèle Vienne & Dorothée Munyaneza

New York Live Arts (Live Arts) and Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels Festival will present the New York Premieres of Gisèle Vienne's L'Étang and Dorothée Munyaneza's Mailles.

Vienne's L'Étang (The pond), October 21st - 23rd, is an adaptation of an early work by the Swiss writer Robert Walser. It reveals an intricate tale of filial love through levels of perception of reality and temporality, interiority and exteriority. Actresses Adèle Haenel and Julie Shanahan embody one and two characters respectively while lending their voices to the others. 

In Mailles, British-Rwandan singer, actress, dancer and choreographer Dorothée Munyaneza brings together five Black, African and Afro-descendant artists, October 26th - 27th. She weaves intimate journeys together, from Bristol to Seville and Port-au-Prince to Marseille, to create a symphony of voices. Each of these voices and bodies tells a unique story of commitment and strength. 

L'Étang will be presented Saturday, October 21st & Monday October 23rd at 7:30pm, and October 22nd at 4:00pm; followed by Mailles on Thursday, October 26th and Friday, October 27th at 7:30pm, at New York Live Arts (219 West 19th Street, New York, NY 10011). Stay Late Conversations will be moderated by Van Cleef & Arpels' Director of Dance and Culture Programs Serge Laurent on October 22nd, and American poet and writer Shayla Lawson on October 27th. Tickets start at $15/$25 and can be purchased at NewYorkLiveArts.org or 212-924-0077, on sale now. 

Gisèle Vienne's L'Étang is a family drama that stands out from Robert Walser's other works, as it is a private text that the young author penned for his sister, as well as his only work written in the Swiss German dialect. It is the story of a child who feels forsaken by his mother. In the darkness of despair, he fakes his suicide to verify her love for him. What are the real issues behind this desperate act? What plays out between the lines and on stage? What are the different layers of language, from words to narrations, utterable or not, that compose our understanding and our communication? These questions are echoed over and over through the writer's text and on stage. Adèle Haenel and Julie Shanahan play one and two parts, respectively, while also lending their voices to the other characters. Many levels of perception of reality and time, of inwardness and outwardness coexist in this work. Probing theatrical and family conventions, L'Étang pointedly asks the question of what is seen – the shared representation of reality and social norms. This performance is created in memory of Kerstin Daley Baradel, a longtime collaborator of Gisèle Vienne who passed away in July 2019, and with whom the director and her team worked in intimate fellowship.

With Mailles, Dorothée Munyaneza expands on work she began in 2014 with autobiographical pieces. Today her voice speaks for other accounts. For this creation, she builds connections with Ife Day, Yinka Esi Graves, Asmaa Jama and Nido Uwera, all artists and all on stage. Mailles is not a gentle show, it's a brilliant pronouncement against the places from which they were rejected. The ensemble is a choreographic choir that pierces the stage with rage, beauty and freedom. A sense of power comes from the collective, which here is symbolized by the costumes of designer and visual artist Stéphanie Coudert. The flowing clothes and voices of the poetesses and singers and the intense movements join together, forming a common body both militant and essential. A haunting melody of many voices.

New York Live Arts' Fall 2023 programming confronts the current critical moment, in which the changing social, political, and cultural tides call to deepen its vision as a conduit for engagement through art. It underscores Live Arts as a central place devoted to bringing people together in interdisciplinary exploration of common values. Standard pricing is on a variable scale, with a minimum of $15 made possible by Con-Edison. Live Arts offers a standard ticket price, as well as options to pay more or less. Live Core artists, Students and Seniors receive 20% off select tickets. Limited $10 student rush tickets day of the show, pending availability. Save 25% on the entire ticket order when purchasing tickets to each of Live Arts' fall mainstage shows. 

This first New York edition of the Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels Festival marks a decisive turning point: it provides an opportunity for the Maison to revive its own heritage in the United States, and holds the promise of fruitful interactions. Several major actors of the history of dance in New York are among the prestigious institutions with which Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels is very proud to collaborate.

About The Artists

GISÈLE VIENNE is a Franco-Austrian artist, choreographer and director. After graduating in Philosophy, she studied at the puppeteering school Ecole Supérieure Nationale des Arts de la Marionnette. She works regularly with the writer Dennis Cooper, among others. Over the past 20 years, her work has toured in Europe and has regularly been performed in Asia and in America. Touring shows include: I Apologize (2004); Kindertotenlieder (2007); Jerk (2008); This is how you will disappear (2010); LAST SPRING: A Prequel (2011); The Ventriloquists' Convention (2015), in collaboration with Puppentheater Halle; and Crowd (2017). In 2020, she created a fourth version of Showroomdummies at the Rohm Theater Kyoto with Etienne Bideau-Rey, originally created in 2001. In 2021, she made the film Jerk and created L'Étang, a show based on Robert Walser's short story Der Teich. Her photography and installations have been exhibited at the New York Whitney Museum, the Centre Pompidou Paris, the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes de Buenos Aires and Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris. She has published two books: JERK / Through Their Tears with Dennis Cooper, Peter Rehberg and Jonathan Capdevielle in 2011; and 40 PORTRAITS 2003-2008, in collaboration with Dennis Cooper and Pierre Dourthe in 2012. Her work has led to various publications, and the original music of her shows to several albums. In 2021, the Festival d'Automne à Paris dedicated a portrait to her, presenting two new creations, four pieces from the repertoire, a new exhibition and the film Jerk. She is currently working on her next creation which will premiere in August 2023 at the Ruhrtriennale.

DOROTHÉE MUNYANEZA: Originally from Rwanda, Dorothée Munyaneza moved to England in the summer of 1994. She studied music at the Jonas Foundation in London and social sciences in Canterbury before settling in France. She collaborated with Francois Verret on Sans Retour, Ice, Cabaret and Do you remember, no I don't. Afterwards, she worked with many other artists, notably Alain Mahé, Stéphanie Coudert, Radouan Mriziga, Maya Mihindou, and Ben Lamar Gay. In 2013, she founded her company, Kadidi, and created Samedi Détente (2014), Unwanted (2017), and Mailles (2020). With music, singing, dance, and writing, Dorothée Munyaneza starts from real-life stories to seize the memory and body and make silences heard and the scars of history seen. An associated artist of the Theatre de la Ville in Paris from 2018 to 2021, and currently an associated artist of the Théâtre National de Chaillot and Maison de la Danse in Lyon, Munyaneza is also an artist in residence at the Fondation Camargo from 2022 to 2024. Dorothée Munyaneza is working on her next piece, Toi, moi, Tituba, in duet with oud-player and electronic music producer Khyam Allami, to be premiered at the Tanz im August Festival in Berlin in August in 2023.

About New York Live Arts

New York Live Arts is an internationally recognized destination for innovative performance and humanities programming, offering audiences access to art and ideas by creatives notable for their conceptual rigor, formal experimentation and active engagement with the sociopolitical and cultural currents of our times. Led by world-renowned artist Bill T. Jones, New York Live Arts supports artists at all stages of their careers through residencies, commissions, and artist services. It also serves as home base for the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company, which has been creating groundbreaking work for over forty years. New York Live Arts acknowledges and offers deep gratitude to Lenapehoking, where the theater sits-the land, and waters of the Lenape homeland.

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