ME TOO, GALATEA

« Allegory of creation or of male domination? The Brazilian choreographer Pol Pi reminds us of all the symbolic violence contained in Ovid’s fable. Behind the artist’s dedication to his work, we’re forced to notice Galatea’s passivity - she who did not even bear a name in the original text. At a time when the most retrograde ideas are freely expressed in Brazil, Galatea is here the starting point for a reflection on the idealization and formatting of the female body by the masculine-patriarchal gaze. »
Adrien Leroy, for La Pop

This performance was commissioned by La Péniche Pop, as part of their program (Re)lectures. For this program, La Pop invites artists from different artistic disciplines to offer a new reading of a classic text. In 2018, the proposed text was Metamorphoses, from Roman poet Ovid. I was asked to work on the eighth fable of Book X, the one that tells the story of Pygmalion.

In Greek mythology, Pygmalion was a king of the island of Cyprus who, according to Ovid, had decided to live in celibacy for not accepting the libertine attitude of the women living on the island, known as courtesans. Also a sculptor, he makes his own version of the ideal woman and falls in love with his statue.

I took this fable as a kind of founding myth of sexism and through its story, I tried to question how the patriarchal gaze wants to shape the so-called « different » bodies. I worked on this performance during the electoral period in Brazil (the premiere having been the very day of the second round that elected Bolsonaro) and Ovid’s fable was hence an opportunity to give substance to the political questions that divided the country and strongly affected me; questions which still keep affecting me, in my flesh.


A performance by and with: Pol Pi
Scenography, costume and outside eye: Rachel Garcia
With the voices of: Lawrence Williams, François Lewyllie, Quentin Barbosa et Martin Paurise

Production : NO DRAMA
Executive production : Latitudes Prod-Lille / Louis Eonnet
Administration : Adèle Devos
Communication : Louise Marion – Astrid Herbron

Coproductions: Rencontres Chorégraphiques Internationales de Seine Saint-Denis and Latitudes Contemporaines.

With the support of studio Flow / Maison Folie – Wazemmes & Moulins / Lille.
The NO DRAMA compagnie is supported by the Département de la Seine-Saint-Denis.

This performance was commissioned by La Pop (Paris) and premiered on October 28th 2018, in the frame of the (Re)lectures cycle, dedicated to Ovid’s Metamorphoses

Photos: ©Marc Domage
©Hervé Véronèse