“There is nothing special about being human, any more than there is anything special about being a guinea pig or a geranium” The Accidental Species: Misunderstandings of Human Evolution, Henry Gee
The UK premiere of choreographer and director Léa Tirabasso’s In the bushes is at The Place, London on Friday 7th & Saturday 8th March. An intense new dance work exploring the preposterous notion of human exceptionalism with style, generosity and humour. It had its successful world premiere in Marseille last November.
Choreographer and director Lea Tirabasso’s In the bushes is an absurd celebration of our untamed and naked souls and the incoherence at the core of humanity. Created in collaboration with six extraordinary dancers, In the bushes explores ideas around Evolution Theory, the Accidental Species and the preposterous notion of human exceptionalism. The dancers are Catarina Barbosa, Georges Maikel Pires Monteiro, Karl Fagerlund Brekke, Laura Lorenzi, Mayowa Ogunnaike and Stefania Pinato.
A cinematic electronic score by Johanna Bramli and Ed Chivers is spliced with vivid bursts of classical, opera and pop. The quirky colourful costumes, sometimes worn, sometimes discarded, are designed by Jennifer Lopes Santos while the atmospheric lighting states are designed by Ben Moon. Tirabasso summons up a fertile, intensely physical theatrical world using all these elements, shaping them with her distinctive choreographic language to ask questions about society’s conventions.
Léa is fascinated in the porous frontier between life and arts. After a career as a dancer, she started creating her own work in 2012, interested in physical notions of humour, dysfunction, exhaustion and the value of instinct in performance practice. She explores philosophical ideas for each of her creations and has worked variously with philosophers, academics, oncologists and geneticists. For her, the links between medicine, philosophy and art are eye-opening. All share curiosity, imagination, the need to think freely – and a little bit of madness.
There are plans for “In The Bushes” after this premiere, Léa is creating a 15-minute work for the graduating students of London Contemporary Dance School which will be shown as part of a mixed bill also at The Place from 1st to 4th July. In the bushes will be at this year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe from 12th to 24th August. Watch out for further news in Spotlight on Kulture, together with an interview we are just chatting about with Lea.
For tickets and further information, please contact the Box office on020 7121 1100 or the theatre’s website / https://theplace.org.uk/events/spring-25-lea-tirabasso-in-the-bushes
Images above (c) Bohumil KOSTOHRYZ
below Léa Tirabasso (c) Léa Junet
