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Moglice-Von Verx // Miroir, Miroir

Moglice-Von Verx (France): Miroir, miroir
Zagrebačko kazalište lutaka – Scena Travno, Božidara Magovca 17
28.11.2009., 20:00
Duration: 45 min
Ticket price: 50 kn
INTERNATIONAL PREMIERE

www.moglice-vonverx.com

A mirror is an object that refers directly to many movies, stories, fairy tales and mythologies, and provokes existential and terrible questions linked to looking deeply within our own self. To which integrity do we refer while looking into our own eyes? Do we reflect what is being plotted behind the scenes? We can always try saving grace, objectively our reflection lies.

Mélissa Von Vépy reappears, after three years, in front of the Zagreb audience. There is a comparable amount of discomfort and anxiety connected to “Mirror, Mirror“; instead of a five and a half meter high parallelepiped as a difficultly conquerable fort for two acrobats (the performance “I look up, I look down…“, FNC 2006), a large mirror is on the stage – facing a far lonelier individual. The mirror hangs there, challenges, calls out and denies an encounter. However, a mirror has, among its other meanings, a role of a control site – from folk beliefs on soul imprisonment (which is why those that have no soul, such as vampires, cannot see their own reflection, or those who break it bring „seven years of misfortune“upon themselves) to contemporary control mechanisms projected by doublesided mirrors of police interview rooms or “Big Brother“reality shows. So what is the reality seen in the mirror? The real one? The distorted one? The unwanted one? Or the projected one? The mirror never has only a life of its own – what are the social standards we compare the seen reflections with and according to which our opinions are created?

Mélissa Von Vépy (born in 1979), of a French-Swiss origin, is a French CNAC educated trapeze performer (eleventh generation). She co-founded the group Moglice-Von Verx in 2000 with Chloé Moglia. The two acrobats joined hands with performances “Un certain endroit du ventre“, “Temps troubles“, “I look up, I look down…“, “Une jambe n'est pas une aile / Nimbus / Croc“. In 2007 they received the SACD “Arts du cirque“ award. Mélissa also created “Dans la gueule du ciel“, a cooperation with the actor Peter James, in March 2009. She worked with both directors and choreographers, such as Guy Alloucherie, Carlotta Ikéda, Sumako Koseki… “Miroir, Miroir“ was comisioned and coproduced by the Avignon Festival.

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“For “Sujets à vif”, SACD cycle at Avignon Festival, she offers a moment of light and poetic grace. She is accompanied by Stéphan Oliva on the piano. Beautiful, moving,magnificent. (…) A small window is standing between the sharpness of the mirror and the hardness of the trapeze and Mélissa Von Vépy comes and goes through that window like an air fairy. We are touched by this magic well mastered but poetic all the same. We cry and we clap…“

Armelle Héliot, Figaro blog

“It is a miracle of grace and poetry. (…) Initially from the circus, she has become an air dancer who bears the creativity of the most talented choreographers.“

Nathalie Simon, Le Figaro