Premiered at Aire de Jeu 2015, Les Subsistances, Lyon
Performance in English with French subtitles

© Caroline Ablain

For her third contribution to the Aire de Jeu festival, Maud Le Pladec has answered the invitation of Les Subsistances by inviting the performer and choreographer Okwui Okpokwasili to co-create the piece.
Hunted is an incantatory project, a recitative, in which the American performer Okwui Okpokwasili wields words, her body, texts, chants, and music by Kalevi Aho.
Invoking the figure of the witch, inspired by the mythical character of Medea, the witches of Macbeth, Mary Wigman, Valeska Gert, and Tatsumi Hijikata, or troublemakers such as Nanny or the members of the W.I.T.C.H. collective […]. Hunted is a hybrid form situated between storytelling and “neo-paganist” ritual.
Okwui Okpokwasili embodies a vocabulary rooted in folklore and political speech. A presence between reality and superstition that is embodied in Kalevi Aho’s music.

Hunted was inspired by Anna Colin’s book Witches – Hunted Appropriated Empowered Queered, which accompanies the project “Plus ou moins sorcières”, a series of exhibitions, projections, performances and conferences presented in 2012 at the Maison Populaire de Montreuil.

Conception, Choreography and Text: Maud Le Pladec and Okwui Okpokwasili
Performer: Dorothée Munyaneza
Lighting: Nicolas Marc
Voice training: Dalila Khatir
Costume Design: Alexandra Bertaut
Live Musicians: Jean-Etienne Sotty, Fanny Vicens
To music by Kalevi Aho
Accordion sonata n 2, black birds
II birds of the night
I birds of light
V black birds
IV birds of desolation
music adapted for two accordions by Jean-Etienne Sotty and Fanny Vicens

Production association Léda, Centre Chorégraphique national d’Orléans # Coproduction Les Subsistances, Lyon # With the support of Ministère de la Culture – DRAC Bretagne au titre des compagnies conventionnées, de la Région Bretagne, de la Ville de Rennes

Filmed by: Didier Dematons
Montage: Julie Pareau