La Meute (The pack)
90' performative and choreographic piece created by Emmanuelle Vincent and Pierre Larauza / t.r.a.n.s.i.t.s.c.a.p.e
March 5th-7th 2025 at Les Halles de Schaerbeek (Brussels, Belgium)
2022: Poland, scarred by a border crisis with Belarus, erects an anti-migrant wall in the protected primary forest of Białowieża. Over a length of 187 km, this 5.5-metre-high wall of steel and barbed wire is equipped with movement detectors.
12 July 2024: an abject law authorises the Polish armed forces to kill anyone who might endanger them with impunity.
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Licence to hunt exiles. Licence to kill.
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Wolf hunting is also back in fashion. The Member States of the European Union recently called for a review of the status of wolves, which until now have been protected under the Bern Convention on the Conservation of European Wildlife in the Wild. Wolf shooting’ could be authorised if wolves are perceived as a threat.
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Licence to hunt wolves. Licence to kill.
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In the face of violence, six animal bodies stand up, stand up straight and speak out.
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La meute (The pack) is a choreographic, sound and visual performance about the power of being together. It's a social pact that advocates emancipation, freeing us from captivity and domestication; rediscovering an inner journey away from familiar landmarks, structural violence and the conventions imposed by society.
Let's seize the urgency to act as living beings. The collective at the centre, in a pack.
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To create La meute (The pack), Emmanuelle Vincent and Pierre Larauza went to observe a pack of wolves in Poland. From the forest of Białowieża to the Halles de Schaerbeek, their experience of tracking will be shared with spectators, who are invited to lie in wait. Neither hunters, nor wildlife photographers, nor border guards... They will witness the doubts, contradictions, joys and search for balance of a group trying to make society.
« Our societies erase our living bodies in favour of representation through images. Our forgotten, annihilated bodies disappear in the tumult of capitalism. I believe in the body as a tool for social transformation and revolt, a means of collective and individual emancipation. Communicating through the non-verbal, through breath and silence, enables us to hear the urgent needs and act as living beings. I am marked by our relationship as living beings to the other beings around us, by our ways of inhabiting the earth, of cohabiting with these other forms of life. It’s important for humans to question their difficulty in recognising the status of others as inhabitants of the earth, which is itself exhaustible and depleted by supremacist humanity. I’m wondering how to live the fact of being alive; how to share the ‘territory’, accept to make room, tame and let ourselves be tamed? »
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Emmanuelle Vincent
Tour manager | Diffusion & Mediation
Manon André
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Concept, choreography, and performance: Emmanuelle Vincent
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Artistic and dramaturgical direction:
Pierre Larauza and Emmanuelle Vincent
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Scenography and choreographic perspective:
Pierre Larauza
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Choreographic material developed in collaboration with performers:
Adèle Bourret, Quentin Chaveriat, Marianne Chargois, Mathieu Dufourg
Sound creation and live performance:
Summer Satana
Creation lighting:
Grégory Rivoux
Textile arts technician:
Marian Eeckhout
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Video:
Pierre Larauza
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Video editing:
Thy Nguyên Truong Minh
and Emmanuelle Vincent
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Dramaturgical advisor:
Marianne Chargois
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Set design assistants:
Malik Benkahla and Delce Roux
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General stage management:
Eliott Janon
Stage management:
Grigory Collomb
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Sound consultant:
Serge Payen
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Construction:
Karl Autrique
Production & administration:
Sílvia Gutiérrez Kirchner
Choreographic assistant interns:
Noah Rolland, Agathe Juvenez
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Production support:
Kathleen Franck and Karolina Szablowska
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Wolf specialists:
Fabian Brugmann and Adam Busko
Production:
transitscape asbl
Co-production:
Les Halles de Schaerbeek, Charleroi Danse, La Coop asbl, and Shelter Prod, with the support of taxshelter.be, ING, and the Belgian Federal Government Tax Shelter.
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With the support of:
BAMP, Central, Studio Thor.
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With the assistance of:
Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles - Direction de la Danse, Wallonie-Bruxelles Théâtre/Danse, the Municipality of Ixelles, and Cocof.