Nicole Mossoux: Incarnation | A Gift

Kefar Nahum (FIMFA Lx13, Teatro Nacional D. Maria II, 2013)

Incarnation

It was because of the amendment of a cloth doll, an activity which seemed of high importance to me and that required my most attentive care that I’ve started wanting to work in a show, in which non-living characters would gain life and would become my full partners. The performance Twin Houses (1994) was born this way.

And whenever I find myself creating, by myself, I cannot stop myself looking for a partner of this quality. Be it a shadow, and object or like more recently the sound…

The question of reincarnation has found without any doubt a special echoes among our Theatre-Dance Company, a question that is not unfamiliar to the right of existing, the opportunity of existing in the world. Among us, there is always a kind of floatation between the scenic act and its incarnation. A question in this straightforwardness, with which we confront the spectator: Am I really here? What kind of character is whispering inside me? What exactly is there in the exterior world that sounds so oddly familiar to me?

And these characters that we animate, that we manipulate, are the inverse reply to these questions. They take us on a boat ride through illusion, in a way we are forced to follow their own rules and to deepen ourselves a bit in their intrinsic mystery and void.

A Gift

Workshop The Body and the Object (FIMFA Lx13, Culturgest, 2013)

During FIMFA’s 2013 edition, Agnès Limbos and I were leading a workshop named “The body and the object”. Unfortunately I was forced to leave earlier to meet a friend from Brussels who was between life and death. I´ve asked Virginie Verdier – a dancer with whom I collaborate, to continue the workshop and take over the “body warm up”.

The day after I have returned to Brussels, me and my friend Martine, received this photo, Agnès, Virginie and all the students together. This gesture moved me deeply. They had forgiven me for leaving them, and this gesture created a very sweet relation with Martine, who just shortly after has left us.

For me (coming from a dance background), puppeteers, performers working with objects, have a particular tendency for empathy. Is it because they are constantly in contact with non-living forms? Is it because they have that kind of gesture that brings them to life?

Is it necessary to find a reason? Or just to find a pattern of satisfaction and gratitude…

BIO

Nicole Mossoux (BE): Choreographer, dancer and director. Co-artistic director of Cie Mossoux-Bonté.

She played in FIMFA with Twin Houses (Maria Matos Teatro Municipal, 2009), Kefar Nahum and Whispers (Teatro Nacional D. Maria II, 2013, 2015). She directed with Agnès Limbos the workshop The body and the object (Culturgest, 2013).