Strange Fruit

Creation 2015

Having seen the photos of the lynching of Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith ( 1930 ), Abel Meeropol was so much shocked that he did not sleep for a while. He wrote then the poem "Strange Fruit". A little later, he put the poem in music. The singer Billie Holiday proposes a deeply moving version.

This choreographic study leans on a historic archive recently bare, constituted by photos and by unpublished papers dealing with the Italian-Ottoman conflict in Libya

( 1911-1912 ). To widen the field of reflection in other temporality and overtake the study of a single historic context, this piece articulates around a sound work realized from the poem Strange Fruit, popularized by Billie Holiday. By questioning these representations of war, executions, aggravated xenophobia, by wondering how to show or not to show the violence, this piece does not try to reproduce them frontally but to reveal the dismay which they provoke in us.

E Eggermont, sign with this third choreography, a necessary work. Astonishing of interiority and depth, its dance is minimal, intense, and guides us towards the essential.

Created and performed by: Emmanuel Eggermont

Artistic assistant & photography: Jihyé Jung

Scenography: Emmanuel Eggermont et Elise Vandewalle

Light design : Serge Damon

Music : Julien Lepreux

Dramaturgy advice: Smaranda Olcèse

This piece can be presented in theater or in alternative spaces (museum, showroom, church...).

Installation

With a tangible taste for the plasticity of materials, Emmanuel Eggermont develops a writing escaping the "spectacular" profusion. Concentrated on the essential, it stimulates the projections and releases the interpretations. Her artistic collaborator Jihyé Jung, dancer and photographer, feeds the dialogue between the image and the body.

In parallel of the choreographic solo, they give to see their own archives, as a putting in light of the creative process. They ask to the fine artist Elise Vandewalle to realiz a "twin" installation to the choreography. Elise Vandewalle leads an artistic practice where the body is the common denominator, the works constituting as memory rests of movements which crossed them.

This installation of Elise Vandewalle and Jihyé Jung is part of the exhibition A fendre le cœur le plus dur, with Agnès Geoffray's works, a production of the writers Jérôme Ferrari and Oliver Rohe and a historic approach proposed by Pierre Schill. This exhibition was presented in particular at the FRAC Alsace - Sélestat en 2015 and at the Centre Photographique d’Ile-de-France (CPIF) – Pontault-Combault en 2016.

Strange Fruit (installation) : Elise Vandewalle (installation), Jihyé Jung (photography and video) et Emmanuel Eggermont (choreography material).

The "To break the hardest heart" got the national label "Centenary 14-18" and is part of the official program of commemoration of the First World War.

Production: L’Anthracite

Coproduction: Montpellier Danse Saison 2015-2016, Le Vivat d'Armentières scène conventionée danse et théâtre, L'échangeur CDC Picardie, Le Gymnase CDC Nord-Pas de Calais,

Le FRAC Alsace, Le CCN de Tours, CDC Pôle Sud-scène conventionnée pour la Danse et la Musique (Strasbourg), Le Ballet de l’Opéra national du Rhin-Centre Chorégraphique National de Mulhouse,L'association Beaumarchais- SACD

With the support of: la DRAC Nord-Pas de Calais. du Conseil Régional Nord-Pas de Calais

Emmanuel Eggermont is in Residency at l’échangeur-CDC Picardie.

This project was supported by the association Beaumarchais - SACD.