Blanc

‘With Blanc Vânia Vaneau offers a moment of rare quality, nourished by a bewitching presence with the aura of a shaman. In a strange ritual, she disappears and becomes a plastic object in her own right, made of skin, the most intimate and universal surface for projection. This solo, accompanied on guitar by Simon Dijoud, is like a waking dream.'

‘Vânia Vaneau offers herself to us like a strange chimera. More than her shamelessly exposed body, it is her soul that she has just laid bare.

‘Throughout the piece, the idea of cross-dressing and identity transition is explored to the point of covering the dancer's naked body with pigments, sticking out her tongue and adopting the postures of initiation rites. Blanc, with its winking title, puts into perspective the point of view of the white man, his finery and artifice, to reveal the richness of his multiplicity and metamorphoses.'

‘The divine surprise was the performance of the first part of an accomplished play, Blanc, by Vânia Vaneau. With few but cleverly exploited resources, the constant support of subtle guitarist Simon Dijoud, and brightly coloured parade outfits placed as offerings on the front of the stage, the young woman gradually entered into a trance, or at least into dance. At the end of her beautiful and simple performance, the dancer emerged from her fabric limbo. It took her a while, like the audience, to catch her breath. To get her feet back on the ground.'

‘The solo is constructed by shifting from one state to another, by episodes that are woven together as they are revealed on the stage. The whole holds together with each new layer deployed, and the strength grows as Vânia Vaneau's body frees itself, pushing towards a powerful, free and assertive body.’

*Blanc is your first solo work. What were the different areas of research you pursued during its creation?

I wanted to make an organic piece, to reach a state of vertigo, of loss of control and rational will. With this in mind, I started by reading a lot of texts about trance, rituals and altered states of consciousness.