Simone Mousset, Louis Chevalier -Artists' Talk
Ballet National Folklorique du Luxembourg /Luxembourg
Under the artistic direction of M. Chevalier
Co-direction: Simone Mousset
For me, live performance is a mysterious way of gathering people that disrupts the real world. I ask questions about our relationship to the uncertain, the disorderly, and the unresolved. I am a creator of often incomplete and surreal mythologies. I create playful, poetic, and fantastical worlds that subvert the familiar and use humour to wrestle with existential fears. My practice encompasses dance, comedy, theatre, voice and singing, magical thinking, visual arts, and writing (Simone Mousset)
The Great Chevalier is a satirical work about the appropriation of power and status through the invention of a fictional national ballet company - Ballet National Folklorique du Luxembourg – and its charismatic and narcissistic Artistic Director, Monsieur Chevalier.
The show draws on self-mythology and the evocation of a fantasised national history. The audience is invited to question the construction of truth, by surrendering to a poetic endeavour that embraces and venerates a unifying national narrative.
Within a European context, where nationalism is experiencing an acute resurgence, the show uses playfulness and offbeat humour to evoke a fictional mythology.
Exploring reverence of the 'great artist', the work questions our individual and collective desire for adoration, for belonging and the often irresistible allure of power and prestige.
At its heart, The Great Chevalier expresses a deep interest in the importance, impact, and manipulation of history, and in the imagination of myths relating to our own stories and environments. Having danced in many places, the artists are fascinated by how folklore can be instrumentalised for political purposes. The Great Chevalier raises questions about who controls these stories, how, by whom, and for what purpose they are used, invented, appropriated, or influenced.
