Marie-Caroline has compelled herself to design a very ‘written’ piece. She has given herself a quasi-constant sequence which, like a reproduction of an image, enables her to construct a painting by collage. We find her lively, urban, fluid – a delicate ballerina and a determined model. We follow her in her daily movements or in her great, swaying crossings of the stage-turned-catwalk. We think we perceive timeless shadows and clearly see famous fragments of The Afternoon of a Faun. At the centre of these motifs, Marie-Caroline leaps and jumps. She seems to be trying to imprint her suspended body on her brother’s very large paintings. This inevitably futile attempt is perhaps the tipping point of her monologue. Movement cannot be projected into space. Time is a struggle even if our elegance bypasses it.

Marie-Caroline Hominal dances like her brother paints, with fragile power that allows them to confront models.

The story is tinged with familiar closeness. Cinema, fashion, sensitive jolts, banal boredom all spring up. We think we perceive an adolescence, timeless models, exuberant flashes, laughter. The body is deformed by the effects of the strobe lights, it becomes a silhouette or an unsurpassable weight. The omnipresent rain slowly builds into a protective ally. Tongues are loosened and project lightness into this repetitive system that is as amusing as it is absurd.

This imaginary is precisely the one to which David Hominal’s painting refers. His work is as radical as it is trivial. Here, he constructs an assertive space of colour as a setting. To do this, he has spread paint on the floor, as he might have done in a silk-screen printing workshop. The movements are repeated and precise. He seems to have followed his own choreography without any fear of the ornamental. He imagines submerging us in colour. He plays with fluorescent hues to distort our perception. He twists our perspective by seizing the impressive dimensions that the stage space allows. The intimate becomes monstrous, affectionate yet ubiquitous.

Thanks to Marie-Caroline Hominal’s uncanny ability to put herself in danger and David Hominal’s ability to densify the energy that runs through him, the two artists produce a four-handed self-portrait – a sparkle in their sibling relationship that joyfully escapes any category or expectation. Perhaps the one who dances is not the one we think.

— Samuel Gross

Conception Marie-Caroline Hominal, David Hominal
Choreography & performance Marie-Caroline Hominal
Painting & scenography David Hominal, Courtesy the artist, Karma International, Kamel Mennour
Shade light David Hominal
Lights David Hominal, Marie-Caroline Hominal, Luc Gendroz
Music Extracts of pre-existing musics
Sound editing Adrien Iseli
Assistant mch Sophie Ammann
Technical direction Luc Gendroz
Production MadMoiselle MCH association-Genève
Coproduction Pavillon de la danse – ADC Genève, Arsenic – Lausanne, Centre culturel suisse de Paris
Residency La Becque | Résidence d’artistes, La Tour-de-Peilz (CH) in partnership with Centre culturel suisse de Paris
Support Pro Helvetia, Fondation suisse pour la culture ; Loterie Romande ; fondations Leenaards and Ernst Göhner Stiftung.

March 08 – 12, 2023 Pavillon de la Danse – Genève (CH)
March 21, 2023 festival ArtDanThé – Vanves (FR)
March 29 – April 2, 2023 Arsenic – Lausanne (CH)