Cabaret Noir
Happening and plea for recognition
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“Spotlight on Blackness”
- In-person event
- Français
- ≈ 1 hour and 30 minutes · No intermission
When it comes to racial justice, we are collectively emerging from an overlong blind silence that demands—now, today—that we cross all the bridges that will lead us to the Other. Cabaret Noir is one of those bridges. A bridge that dances, thinks and throws off light!
Solo choreographer Mélanie Demers, accompanied by a team of sublime creator–performers, travelled up the cultural river of what she calls her “negritude” to confront the works, artifacts and stereotypes that have shaped her identity. From the works of such key figures as Frantz Fanon, Toni Morrison and Dany Laferrière to the syncopated writing of episodes of Lance et compte, from Nina Simone’s jazz vocals to a Creole lullaby, from Othello’s monologue to the logorrhea of Spike Lee’s films, no structuring stone has been left unturned. In Cabaret Noir, the multidisciplinary artist delivers the result of her quest in a great melting pot of ideas that takes the form of a glorious interdisciplinary happening.
Six performers, improbable cosmonauts in motorcycle helmets, share a stage that becomes, as scene follows scene, a circus ring, a playground, an agora. Discourse develops, then contradicts itself; bodies assess their own living weight; and meaning, like a wild and poetic salmon, remains vigorous and in motion.
*The show contains text in French, English, Creole and a smattering of Spanish, without surtitles.
- Performers Vlad Alexis, Florence Blain Mbaye, Paul Chambers, Mélanie Demers, Stacey Désilier and Fabrice Yvanoff Sénat
- Original cast Vlad Alexis, Florence Blain Mbaye, Paul Chambers, Mélanie Demers, Stacey Désilier and Anglesh Major
- Dramaturg Angélique Willkie
- Lighting Paul Chambers
- Original Music Anglesh Major and Florence Blain Mbaye
- Music editing Anglesh Major
- Costumes Sophie El Assaad
- Rehearsal Director Anne-Marie Jourdenais
- Technical Director Radwan Ghazi Moumneh
- Produced by MAYDAY
- Co-production Le Groupe de la Veillée, l’Agora de la danse et le Théâtre français du CNA. MAYDAY a bénéficié d’une résidence de création du Théâtre Prospero et de l’Agora de la danse.
- Thank you Carmen Jolin, Francine Bernier, Mani Soleymanlou et toustes nos généreux·ses coproducteurs·trices et collaborateurs·trices. Timothy Rodrigues. Et merci aussi à toutes les lignées d’ancêtres, d’artistes, d’activistes auxquelles nous sommes allés puiser.