Events

Mailles (Mesh) is a show that celebrates women. Whether they are artists or intellectuals, the subjects of this show hail from the four corners of the Earth and are Black, African or Afro-descendant. And committed. Dorothée Munyaneza’s various encounters with these women go back in time and their ongoing dialogues have been a rich source of intimate details, shared readings and sensations. She unites them onstage in order for their different paths to be heard, as well as the violence of their life stories and history itself. In doing so, she enables audiences to share in the combat that these women have been waging in spaces where they often face rejection.

The piece is a celebration of female might, a driving force in art as much as in life. Their memories, peopled with elements of the past, are in conversation with present-day accounts to angry effect, the threads of a single piece of cloth. In this symphony for six voices, Dorothée Munyaneza seeks to weave the fabric of these stories in collaboration with the designer and visual artist Stéphanie Coudert. The costume and the material itself thus become the through-line for what happens onstage, thereby raising questions about female and bodily freedom.

This is Dorothée Munyaneza’s second appearance at Seuls en Scène. In 2017, she presented Unwanted. 

Join the Event

The screening of this filmed dance performance is free and open to Princeton students, faculty and staff. Advance registration is required.

Register for Mailles

COVID-19 Guidance + Updates

Per Princeton University policy, all audiences attending indoor events are required to be fully vaccinated and to wear a mask. Visitors may attend outdoor events and are not required by current University policy to attest to COVID-19 vaccination or wear a face covering.

Accessibility

The performance features texts in English. Visit our Venues and Studios section for accessibility information at our various locations. Attendees in need of access accommodations are invited to contact the Lewis Center at least two weeks in advance at LewisCenter@princeton.edu.

 

CONVERSATION WITH THE ARTIST

PHOTOS

ABOUT THE ARTIST

unwanted

Photo of Dorothée Munyaneza by Richard Schroeder

Musician, author and choreographer, Dorothée Munyaneza develops an ardent work. On the international contemporary scene since the early 2000s in several musical and
choreographic projects, she starts from the real to capture the memory and the body, the individual and the collective; to speak and to carry the voices of those who are silent; to question the genocide of the Tutsis, the violence against women, the racial inequalities. To hear the silences and see the scars of History.

Originally from Rwanda, Dorothée Munyaneza left Kigali in 1994, at the age of 12, to settle down with her family in England. Already a British citizen, she studied music at the Jonas Foundation in London and social sciences in Canterbury before moving to France. In 2004, she composed and performed the soundtrack of the movie Hotel Rwanda by Terry George and in 2005 she participated in the album Anatomic by the group Afro Celt Sound System. In 2010, she released her first solo album, recorded with the producer Martin Russell, and collaborated in 2012 on the album Earth Songs by the composer James Brett.

She dialogues with the music and other forms of artistic expression: interweaving afrofolk, dance and texts of the American militant singer Woody Guthrie with the guitarist Seb Martel or crossing dance, poetry and experimental music with the musician Jean-François Pauvros, the choreographer Ko Murobushi and the composer Alain Mahé. With this musical partner, she experimented performances in situ at the Centre Pompidou, in the collections of the MuCEM, in Marseille, on the occasion of a photographic exhibition at the BAL in Paris (Par la mer), and elaborates her choreographic creations. In 2006, she meets François Verret and is his interpreter in Sans Retour, Ice, Cabaret and Do you remember, no I don’t. Since then, Dorothée Munyaneza has worked on the international choreographic scene with Nan Goldin, Mark Tompkins, Robyn Orlin, Rachid Ouramdane, Maud Le Pladec and Alain Buffard.

In 2013, she created the company Kadidi and signed her first creation, Samedi Détente, in 2014 at the Théâtre de Nîmes – Scène Conventionnée pour la Danse. Unwanted, her second work, was created in 2017 at the Festival d’Avignon and was presented over a hundred times. Both plays have an incredible international influence and thus have been traveling all over the world from 2014 to today (Europe, South America, United States, Africa). Associate artist at the Théâtre de la Ville, in Paris, Dorothée Munyaneza presented a concert-performance entitled Woad in May 2019 in the context of the Chantiers d’Europe, with the musicians Benjamin Colin and Daniel Ngarukiye, as well as the flamenco dancer Yinka Esi Graves. In addition, she was a member of the jury of the Danse Élargie contest in 2014 and Africa Simply the Best of the Ankata laboratory of the choreographer Serge-Aimé Coulibaly in 2019.

CREDITS

Concept — Dorothée Munyaneza
With Ife Day, Yinka Esi Graves, Asmaa Jama, Elsa Mulder, Dorothée Munyaneza, Nido Uwera
Artistic collaboration, costumes, scenography — Stéphanie Coudert
With thanks to Keyierra Collins, Hlengiwe Lushaba Madlala, Zora Santos
Music — Alex Inglizian, Alain Mahé, Ben Lamar Gay, Dorothée Munyaneza
Sound Design — Alain Mahé
Lighting Design — Christian Dubet
Set Design advice — Vincent Gadras
Stage Management — Marion Piry
Light Management — Marine Levey, Anna Geneste
Sound Management — Camille Frachet

Production Company — Kadidi, Anahi

Coproduction — Théâtre de la Ville – Paris, Festival d’Automne à Paris, Charleroi Danse – Centre Chorégraphique de Wallonie-Bruxelles, Châteauvallon – Scène nationale, Théâtre de Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines – Scène nationale, Le Grand T – Théâtre de Loire-Atlantique, CCN – Ballet National de Marseille (Accueil Studio 2020), NEXT Festival / La Rose des Vents – Scène nationale Lille Métropole Villeneuve d’Ascq, Théâtre National de Bretagne, Théâtre de Nîmes – Scène conventionnée d’intérêt national – Art et Création – Danse contemporaine

With the support of DRAC Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, Ministère de la Culture, Fonds de dotation du Quartz – Scène nationale de Brest, La Chartreuse de Villeneuve lez Avignon – Centre national des écritures contemporaines, la SPEDIDAM, le Département des Bouches du Rhône, la Ville de Marseille.

Dorothée Munyaneza is Associate Artist of Théâtre de la Ville – Paris. She was in residence in Chicago (USA) with the support of FACE Foundation, Consulat francais de Chicago, Institut Français Paris ; in partnership with High Concept Labs, Ragdale Foundation, Experimental Station, Poetry Foundation, France Chicago Center at the University of Chicago.

SPONSORS

The French Theater Festival is sponsored by Princeton University’s Lewis Center for the Arts, L’Avant-Scène, Department of French and Italian, Humanities Council, Princeton Institute for International and Regional Study (PIIRS), Department of Art and Archaeology, Department of Comparative Literature, Program in Contemporary European Politics and Society, Center for French Studies, and Rockefeller College. International sponsors include Festival d’Automne in Paris, Cultural Services of the French Embassy, the Education Department of the French Embassy, Institut français, and the French American Cultural Exchange Foundation.

Presented By

  • Lewis Center for the Arts
  • Department of French and Italian
  • L’Avant-Scène

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