Eden / B4, performance with Jean Fürst, Yannick Guédon and Catalina Pernao, Maison des Arts de Malakoff, 2020

Eden / B4 was produced during the Performed Residency # 9 at the Maison des Arts in Malakoff curated by the art critic and philosopher Florian Gaité.

«The project imagined by Violaine Lochu revolves around the notion of choir, a symbol of siblings and the experience of companionship. In the religious and military choir, in fact, all the members are at the service of the same message, of the same cause, as if it were a question of prolonging the community life of the camp or of the brotherhood. In the religious choir, this time it is the common work that brings together the members and welds them together in a community of time and experience (which includes periods of learning, rehearsals, concerts or even tours).

The performance takes advantage of this conditional harmony of the choir to reflect on the notion of vocal confusion. This is understood primarily in the sense of undifferentiated, insofar as the individual voice in fusion with those of the group gives the impression of disappearing. The feeling of confusion will also be introduced with the help of visual elements such as the uniform, hairstyle (tonsure, hat …) or make-up. It is a matter of taking note of the fact that in religious, military or classical music choirs, all the members are dressed in the same way, to such an extent that it is sometimes difficult to get them. dissociate. Positioning in space will also be decisive, it favors the constitution of a homogeneous and united group, synchronized, walking at the same pace.

If the project starts well from these notions of vocal and visual confusion, but also of companionship, inherent in the choir, it nonetheless breaks away from its academic forms to think those of performance. Traditionally, choirs distinguish performers according to their age and gender, divided into major categories (women / men / children), or, when the choirs are mixed, in tessitura of voices (soprano, alto, tenor, bass ). On the contrary, it is a question of creating an Adelphe choir, a queer term which designates siblings or sorority, thought out of any reference to the notion of gender.

This gesture of deconstruction thus aims to find an a-gender voice (the one before the moult, when boy and girl have a common range) but also a genderless body (again drawing inspiration from early childhood while the baby is not yet gender aware). The performance opens up space-time to a world “before the fall”, while Eve and Adam are not yet aware of their nudity, a metaphor for the time when the child is not yet sexed.

The performance finally addresses a last theme, this time linked to the phenomenon of «hate-love» specific to the Adelphe community (siblings, sorority). The ambivalence between confusion / dissociation, rivalry / fascination, plurality / singularity, union / dispute, staging in the choir, reminds us of the relationship between brother and sister, especially as it is experienced during infancy, when the other can be perceived as an extension or an extension of oneself, when their gender can become mine until it borders on hermaphroditism. ” Florian Gaité