PUT YOUR HEART UNDER YOUR FEET… AND WALK !
TO ELU
Steven Cohen engages in a deeply moving ceremony in memory of his partner, the dancer Elu, who passed away after 20 years of life together. A cathartic gesture doubled with a brave profession of faith in art as a ritual that celebrates life. He invites the public to celebrate love with him, and to engage in dialogue with death. Everything that happens is real.
“Attending a work by Steven Cohen is always an indelible experience. His ability to transform his body into a work of art, his face and his skull into a landscape, seems limitless. Painted, adorned with rhinestones, butterfly wings, entirely powdered, he becomes here a magical and striking deity of timeless beauty. His grace, his slowness and his calmness are inversely proportional to the deep and radiant violence of the acts in which he engages as an officiant. The softer the gestures, the more relentless their impact.”
Rosita BOISSEAU, Le Monde
“This work is an expression of accepting my destiny in not dying alongside Elu, an experiment in how to deal with survivor guilt in an effort to keep my amputated heart still beating, in how to bear tribute to our lives so richly danced in poverty.
I will let the dead bury the dead and I will produce a vital art, in celebration of our shared life – sometimes with the wind in its sails, sometimes by crawling on “the boulevard of broken dreams”
The last wish that Elu expressed to me on his deathbed was “I want to be with you forever”. It will be so.”
2017 (creation)
Montpellier FR / humain Trop humain / Montpellier Danse
2018
Johannesburg ZA / Dance Umbrella
Marseille FR / KLAP CND
Lausanne CH / Théâtre Vidy
Grahamstown ZA / National Art Festival
Toulouse FR / Théâtre Garonne
Milan IT / Festival Danae
Bern CH / Dampfzentrale
Reims FR / Le Manège Scène Nationale
Lyon FR / Les Subsistances
2019
Zurich CH / Théâtre Gessnerallee
Orléans FR / Scène Nationale
Poitiers FR / TAP Festival A Corps
Montréal CA / Usine C / Festival TransAmériques
Jérusalem IL / Jerusalem Theatre
Vienne AT / Odeon Theater
Paris FR / Centre Pompidou / Festival d’Automne
Bobigny FR / MC93 / Festival d’Automne
2020
Annecy FR / Bonlieu Scène Nationale
2021
Rennes FR / TNB
La Rochelle FR / CCN
2023
Bruxelles BE / Théâtre National Wallonie-Bruxelles
Berlin DE / Berliner Festpiele
Leipzig DE / Schauspiel Leipzig
© Pierre Planchenault
Choreography, scenography, costumes and interpretation; Steven Cohen
Lights : Yvan Labasse
Videos : Richard Muller & SHU
Video management : Baptiste Evrard
External regard : Catherine Cossa
Stage management : Samuel Mateu
Production : Cie Steven Cohen
Co-production : humain Trop humain – Centre Dramatique National (Montpellier) / Montpellier Danse / Dance Umbrella (Johannesburg) / with the support of DRAC Nouvelle-Aquitaine
Show created on June 24, 2017 at the Centre Dramatique National de Montpellier as part of the Montpellier Danse festival.
STEVEN COHEN COMPANY
24 rue Succursale | 33000 Bordeaux | France
Samuel Mateu
Production | +33(0)6.27.72.32.88
production[@]steven-cohen.com
The Steven Cohen Company is supported by
Drac Nouvelle-Aquitaine and by Conseil Départemental de la Gironde.
PUT YOUR HEART UNDER YOUR FEET… AND WALK!
Midlands Arts Centre, Birmingham UK
Midlands Arts Centre, Cannon Hill Park Birmingham, B12 9QH United Kingdom