L’après-midi d’un foehn
Version 1

The multidisciplinary artist Phia Ménard finally comes to the Théâtre National Wallonie-Bruxelles with one of the most emblematic pieces of her repertoire: L’après-midi d’un foehn Version 1. In the first opus of the Pièces de vent (‘Wind plays’) cycle, the performer looks at the air that surrounds us. Here, the material to which we rarely pay attention, becomes an artistic object in its own right, opening wide the doors of a poetic and aerial imagination. The foehn is that vigorous, hot, dry, “snow-eating” southerly wind, whose aggravating effect on mood and behavior is documented by the University of Munich Ludwig-Maximilians. Based on the influence of matter on our mood swings, Phia Ménard creates a utopia in which humans control the wind.

On the stage, to the sound of three musical works by Claude Debussy – L’après-midi d’un faune, Nocturnes and Dialogue du vent et de la mer –
a ballet master surrounded by ventilators gives life to a cloud of plastic bags transformed into puppets that fly up, descend, turn and twirl under the effect of the currents of the silent vortex.

In this volatile parable, there is a sensitive and critical dimension: Phia Ménard’s gestures relate to transformation, she erodes matter and individuals; each new gesture creates radiant, dancing worlds, where the human and the non-human are one. Something interlinks them.

Ultimately, L’après-midi d’un foehn Version 1 invites us to wonder, before what is impalpable and brilliantly tamed in a performance/installation, as if it were pieces of matter: Isn’t air the real matter of life?