Black Lights

Inspired by real events, Black Lights is a show-series-manifesto that takes a look at the violence perpetrated against women on a daily basis. The show is based on a hard-hitting series entitled H24, which will be broadcast on ARTE in 2021, based on an original idea and direction by two film-makers, Valérie Urrea and Nathalie Masduraud.

The series features 24 short, daring films about 24 situations in a woman’s daily life. It features 24 short, scripted stories set against different backdrops of everyday violence against women. 

Talk, dance. 

The body is my subject, movement is my object. I remain fascinated by the complexity of what a body in movement is capable of: by producing a plurality of meanings and images, it produces the imaginary, the political, meaning, it is a vector of immense possibility ranging from the poetic to the political. 

I have chosen to include 11 texts in this collection, simply because they are charged with a story of the body, 11 authors for a single stage community of dancers, singers and actors, 8 artists on stage who will carry these words as sisters, witnesses, partners in the game, but also 8 artists who will carry a common rhythm through the figures of chorus, group, support and dance. In the introduction to the collection, the two directors say: ‘Don’t hesitate to take hold of these words, they’re powerful, they’re yours’. I take this outstretched hand at face value as a call for a show that could be invented and give these stories another life, directly linking what these texts do to the body. 

A form of relay to say again, to bear witness, to continue to pursue this formidable punch that makes us understand these injustices. 

– Mathilde Monnier –