Docteur B.
With Docteur B., a made-to-measure piece for her neurologist husband, Ève-Chems de Brouwer plunges the audience into the mysteries of the brain and emotions.
THE BEWITCHING BRAIN
A theatre artist for whom the dancing body has pride of place, Ève-Chems de Brouwer anchors her work in reality, which she investigates with the fascination of an anthropologist. A made-to-measure piece for her neurologist husband, Docteur B. is an act of love that plunges the audience into the mysteries of the brain –what nourishes it, why some become irrational and unhinged.
A couple onstage as in life. Her approach to movement is scientific as she transforms gesture into dance. Ever curious about the strange and the unfamiliar, she invites her husband to plunge freefall into the unknown, far from his usual self, and to become a performer. Together they play with their differing temperaments, dissecting the connections to our neurons, questioning what causes our drives and our passions. Standing in the way of this clinical look are irrational impulses and fragile postures. Then things start to come together. And there it is, the human race – its incomprehensible changes of mood, its monstrous rages, its sublime instincts – incarnated in magnificent fashion.
PRODUCED BY ÈVE-CHEMS DE BROUWER
DIRECTED BY ÈVE-CHEMS DE BROUWER
WRITTEN AND PERFORMED BY CHARLES BEHR + ÈVE-CHEMS DE BROUWER
ARTISTIC ASSOCIATE MARIE-STÉPHANE LEDOUX
ARTISTIC ADVISOR FABIENNE CABADO
SOUND DESIGN FRÉDÉRIC AUGER
LIGHTING DESIGN PATRICK RIOU
COSTUME DESIGN YOLA VAN LEEUWENKAMP
COPRODUCTION FESTIVAL TRANSAMÉRIQUES + PÔLE SUD
WRITTEN BY DIANE JEAN
TRANSLATED BY NEIL KROETSCH
PREMIERED AT FESTIVAL TRANSAMÉRIQUES, MONTREAL, ON MAY 28, 2015
ÈVE-CHEMS DE BROUWER (Belgium)
Poetry of the Real
With an Egyptian mother and a Belgian father, Ève-Chems De Brouwer is fascinated by intermixtures and hybrids, the mingling of horizons, cultures and experiences. A graduate of the École Supérieure du Théâtre National in Strasbourg, her first professional gig brought her to Russia, where she collaborated with dancers for the first time, after which she could no longer imagine theatre without dance. In 2010 she performed in Le tangible, a production by the Flemish collective Tg Stan that was presented at the Festival d’automne in Paris, and also in Bulbus, directed by Daniel Jeanneteau and presented at Théâtre de la Colline in 2011. In writing her first play in 2010, she began by conducting a series of interviews. Focusing on the hereditary transmission of amorous behaviour, Le gène de l’amour fou was presented at Théâtre 71 de Malakoff, an initial expression of her desire to anchor her work in reality.
