Director Phia Ménard returns with “Art. 13”, a monumental but difficult show to read in the MC93

The piece questions Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on freedom of movement, with a grandiose production, without dialogue and playing with symbols.

“Alan Kurdi 2012-2015”. This is what it says on the sign in front of the stage curtain. Alan Kurdi is this little refugee boy from the Syrian civil war who was found drowned on September 2, 2015 at the age of three. The photos of his lifeless body on the beach in Turkey shocked the world and reopened the question of accepting migrants. Immigration is the starting point of Phia Ménard’s new creation entitled Art. 13.

The title refers to Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. “Everyone has the right to move freely within a state and to choose their place of residence. Everyone has the right to leave any country, including their own, and return to their own country.” Is it really like that? Phia Ménard has doubts about this and decides to reshuffle the cards with her choreographic show.

What do we do in the face of injustice?

In a perfectly manicured French garden, we hear the deafening noise of chainsaws and lawnmowers. So loud that the audience covered their ears. In this world so perfect it resembles a video game, a statue of a man sits atop its giant base. A man far from the ground, “Symbol of culture“, states Phia Ménard in her letter of intent.

On the grass strewn with gravel paths, an unidentifiable creature, half child, half larva, moves on the ground like an earthworm. He approaches the statue, retrieves the ax that was holding it, and strikes it, bringing it down. Everything is hinted at without the interpreter Marion Blondeau saying it clearly. She symbolically embodies those who are excluded from society, those who seek a welcoming country and are considered monsters to be driven out.

The show asks an illegible question with no prior information about Phia Ménard’s intentions. What do we do in the face of injustice? The piece questions the way we appropriate spaces. Can we go places we are not invited to? Are we allowed to destroy the beautiful, perfectly ordered garden? Phia Ménard has a political message that cannot be understood without reading the Raumblatt. “It must be said that Schengen Europe is a castle protected by walls and moats, and we prefer not to hear the screams of the drowning people.”, explains Phia Ménard. She’s shattering this castle.

Stop inaction

Through this garden, which is devastated by the creature on stage, order and decency are symbolically trampled on. Marion Blondeau, the only performer on stage, moves like a child, dancing, rolling on the floor, stepping on gravel paths and creating new ones with statue pieces. Art. 13 is a reaction to inaction. “Destroy or deconstruct, that could be the subtitle“, adds Phia Ménard. The piece shows a struggle for the reappropriation of space. In this garden with demarcated paths, there is no longer room for wild nature, weeds and bad seeds.

Phia Ménard rejects this shaped nature in which we eliminate what we consider to be pests or invaders. She enjoys the contrast between speech and action. Beliefs and values ​​such as those in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights are shared by everyone but rarely put into practice. Faced with this dichotomy, Phia Ménard gives a clear answer: action. In her stage design with its sublime lighting play, the director focuses on the creatures that remain in action and do not allow themselves to be defeated. When the statue is replaced by another, much more monumental one, the creature cannot be crushed. She continues to deconstruct this massive symbol of power, brick by brick. With Art. 13Phia Ménard reclaims the boundaries of freedom and invites us to mobilize instead of cry.

“Art. 13″staged by Phia Ménard and the Non Nova Company, until January 28th at MC93 in Bobigny and on tour in France until April.