DESCRIPTION / OVERVIEW
GRAVISSIME is a slow-motion solo performed by Anne Delahaye on Handel's piano Suites played by Louis Bonard. Although it's aimed at children, GRAVISSIME takes a minimalist approach and doesn't rely on laughter, in order to speak to children. The principle is simple.
The piano player
Louis Bonard plays Handel's piano suites at the side of the stage for the first 30 minutes of a show that lasts all together around 45 minutes.
A creature of fantasy
Anne appears on stage as a strange, fantastical being. Her costume is marvelous, giving her a fascinating allure and elongating her hypnotic silhouette. She's the only character on stage, and she moves forward in slow motion throughout the play.
The temporality of the creature
The creature's movements are slow, but ample and ultra-demonstrative. Facial expressions, which are extremely pronounced, form the basis of the score. A 30-minute slow-motion solo takes the form of a long, slow advance from the back of the stage to the front. The creature is constantly in tumultuous emotional conflict, unable to break out of this slow-motion temporality. It seems to be trying to get rid of something, we don't know exactly what, but it seems to be failing. Although everything is in slow motion, she can go from a threatening posture to a threatened one in no time. This is the temporality of frightening emotions: anger, fear, obstruction, discomfort. We recognize ourselves in this character, constantly prevented by the abundance of emotions; we contemplate ourselves, with faces distorted by fear, power or anger.
The pianist's temporality
The pianist doesn't really seem connected to what's happening on stage, but continues to play Handel's piano Suites, which accompany the character's emotional adventure, bringing both lightness and tragedy.
Louis and Haendel occupy a "normal" temporality and real-life duration: the Suites follow one another, and time never seems to run out. This is the temporality of the others, of the audience perhaps, in any case not that of this character, who seems to occupy a much more complicated and distended duration.
From fantastic creature to exposed human being
As time goes by, and the character wrestles with all the physicality of his emotions, he constantly twists and reshapes himself, shedding his voluminous costume. He becomes more and more "human", less and less "fantastic". He regains his human silhouette, simple and perhaps a little miserable, but certainly less tragic and more recognizable.
Speaking out
This 30-minute slow motion culminates in a speech. So that's what it was all about! The interpreter was painfully trying to speak, to dare to speak in front of us, shaking off the overabundance of emotions.
What will she tell us? Something great? Something terribly banal?
