Dance
Mathilde Monnier & Dominique Figarella
Soapéra, an installation
Contours of air that disappear upon touch,
ephemeral foam of space and time
This collaboration between Mathilde Monnier, one of France’s leading choreographers who is known for working with artists from diverse fields, and visual artist Dominique Figarella, began by questioning the traditional role painting plays in theater: the stage backdrop. After their first collaboration Soapéra in 2010, the two artists continued to develop, deepen, and expand the work. Out of this long dialogue of dance and visual art came Soapéra, an installation (2014), a work depicting form and time as fragile yet fundamental.
A huge mass of foam falls and piles up, dominating the stage. The dancers carefully make contact with the material, which is surprisingly light despite its visual volume. First, the dancers are buried, drowning under the foam, then folding and embracing it, and finally tearing off and wrapping themselves in it. Their movements guided by the foam, the dancers sculpt with it. But no matter how cautiously it is touched, the foam still dissolves. Eventually, all that remains are the dancers’ bodies and a few small traces of the foam.
10.18 (Fri) 19:00
10.19 (Sat) 19:00 ♡
10.20 (Sun) 16:00 ◆★
★ Post-show talk
◆ Festival Share Cafe (Language: Japanese only)
♡ Childcare Service (reservation required 7 days before each performance)
Duration: 45 min
☞ Workshop
Date: 10.19 (Sat) 13:00-17:00
Venue: Multi-purpose Hall, KYOTO ART CENTER
Participants must have previous dance experience
Facilitator: Mathilde Monnier
Fee: ¥1,000
Capacity: 20 (first come, first served)
Reserve through the form.
Advance tickets:
Adult ¥3,500
Youth (25 and under), Students ¥3,000
High School Students & Younger ¥1,000
Pair ¥6,500 (Advance tickets only)
Day tickets are the same price as advance tickets.
Seating: Unreserved
Mathilde Monnier
Montpellier, France
Monnier is a leading choreographer in the French and international contemporary dance scene. She served as artistic director of the Centre Chorégraphique National de Montpellier Languedoc-Roussillon from 1994 to 2013 where she collaborated with many artists from different fields including Jean-Luc Nancy, Christine Angot, La Ribot and Heiner Goebbels. She has created over fifty choreographic pieces which have been presented on major international stages such as the Avignon Festival and the Théâtre de la Ville in Paris as well as receiving numerous awards for her work (Ministry of Culture Award, SACD Grand Prize). After serving as artistic director of the Centre National de la Danse (CND) in Paris, she resumed her own creative work in 2019, presenting works in collaboration with La Ribot and Tiago Rodrigues.
Dominique Figarella
Montpellier, France
Born in 1966, Dominique Figarella is a French visual artist. He lives and works in Montpellier and teaches at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Figarella’s artistic practice integrates gestures, accidents, traces like splashes or footprints and even objects into his work. A graduate of the Villa Arson, his work is regularly shown in France, Europe and the United States. He has had solo exhibitions at La Station (Nice, France, 2008), Musée de Sérignan (France, 2009), Carré Sainte Anne (Montpellier, France, 2009), LiFE (Saint-Nazaire, France, 2010) and Villa Tamaris (La Seyne-sur-Mer, France, 2019). From 2022 to 2024, his work has been exhibited at the Espace d'Art Concret, Mouan-Sartoux (France), Musée d'art Moderne, Paris (France) Musée d'art Moderne, Ceret (France) and Musée d'Art Contemporain, MAC, Lyon (France).
Concept: Mathilde Monnier & Dominique Figarella
Choreography: Mathilde Monnier
Visual Art: Dominique Figarella
Dancers: I-fang Lin, Virgile Dagneaux, Thiago Granato, Jonathan Pranlas-Descours
Stage Collaboration: Annie Tolleter
Sound: Olivier Renouf
Lighting: Éric Wurtz
Costume Designer: Laurence Alquier
General Manager: Thierry Cabrera
Co-production: Centre Pompidou, Paris, and the Centre Choréographique National de Montpellier Mathilde Monnier’s company is supported by the DRAC Occitanie
Supported by Agency for Cultural Affairs, Government of Japan | Japan Arts Council, Fondation Franco-Japonaise Sasakawa
Under the auspices of Embassy of France in Japan / Institut français du Japon
Co-presented by Kyoto Experiment and Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels
[Soapéra, an installation], co-presented by Kyoto Experiment and Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels in the frame of the Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels Festival in Kyoto and Saitama (10/4-11/16).
