Mirlitons
is a kind of whistle for children,
it’s an unpretentious poem,
it’s a gold Louis marked with the number 2,
it’s a military headgear,
it’s also a pastry (a cream roll).
The stage is an arena. Two masked bodies, martial, unrecognizable, humble, and rattling. Microphones, loudspeakers, risers, bells, shoes. A ritual of presentations, a confrontation, a knot, a denouement. A total saturation of frequencies and muscles: a therapy through excess. Bodies and sounds torn between the melancholy of vanished rituals and the aggressiveness of actuality. A gracious and enduring duel of beatbox and percussion: a wall, a halo, an ancient world lost in the face of toxic respiration, buried in the two fighters.
The point of departure of our reunion was odd rhythms – 7 beats – which are anomalies in our binary Western environments, which form a challenge to our respective practices. It is through the percussion of my feet on the ground that I seek to confront Aymeric; this led us to develop a percussive (heels against the floor, lips against the microphone), implacable and rough music. The feet and the mouth stand in opposition, bodies are sculpted and activated through these two extremities, and we arrive in a place that is simultaneously connected to the underground and to the sky. Our encounter becomes a confrontation, a competition, an alliance, a ritual – dark and exhausting, it appears to invoke its antidote, its underside. Those few moments we shared in the opacity of the studio confirmed our desire to meet regularly to let these mirlitons escape, confront and comfort each other. – François Chaignaud
The performance will be followed by Festival Opening Drinks at Morfar Ginko. Join us!
On Monday May 5 at MDT you can participate in a dance and beatbox workshop with François Chaignaud & Aymeric Hainaux.
Presented with the generous co-production support of Dansens Hus in Stockholm, and with the support of Institut Français de Suède.
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FRANÇOIS CHAIGNAUD
After graduating in 2003 from the National Superior Conservatory of Paris for Music and Dance, François Chaignaud has danced for many choreographers (Alain Buffard, Boris Charmatz, Emmanuelle Huynh, Gilles Jobin). Since his first piece in 2004, he conceives dance as a global expression, his work is characterized by the articulation of singing and dance and a profound relationship to history, evinced in his own work as well as in the collaborations he has formed with multiple artists (with Jérôme Marin, Marie Caroline Hominal or Théo Mercier). Between 2005 and 2016, together with Cecilia Bangolea, he created a series of noteworthy shows that were presented worldwide. In 2021, he founded mandorle productions, whose artistic line is based on the cooperation with other artists such as Nina Laisné, Marie-Pierre Brébant, Akaji Maro, Dominique Brun, and Sasha J. Blondeau. He also creates pieces for large groups of performers: Soufflette in 2018, and t u m u l u s in 2022, then In absentia in 2024, with Geoffroy Jourdain. He recently created the pieces Mirlitons with Aymeric Hainaux and Petites Joueuses and is currently working on Último Helecho with Nadia Larcher and Nina Laisné (to be created in 2025). A portrait is dedicated to him on the occasion of the Festival d’Automne à Paris 2025. He is an associate artist at Chaillot – Théâtre national de la Danse in Paris as well as the Maison de la danse and the Biennale de la danse de Lyon.
AYMERIC HAINAUX is a visual artist, musician and composer. Particularly known for his very personal human beatbox style and his 6 years hitchhiking tour. For his intense corporeal performances he uses a kind of beatboxing style, but ends up with sound signatures that relate much more to abstract electronic music, drone, glitch and noise than to hip hop. Besides his own body, breath and voice, the only extras he uses are a microphone, some harmonicas, accordion, bells and echo pedal. No loop, live action only! His music comes literally from within – voice, breath, muscle tension, movements, heartbeats and sudden outbursts of sound are celebrating the living and the immediacy of the present moment. Hainaux has repeatedly been awarded in the French Beatbox Championship. He has played in different places; from squats to La Fondation Cartier, Palais de Tokyo, Empty Bottle Chicago, Phono Festival Odense, Biennial of Thessaloniki, MUDAM Luxembourg, Villa Arson Nice.
Conception and interpretation: François Chaignaud & Aymeric Hainaux
Artistic collaboration: Sarah Chaumette
Costume design: Sari Brunel
Light conception: Marinette Buchy
Technical manager: Marinette Buchy
Sound operator: Jean Louis Waflart
Production and distribution: Mandorle Productions (Chloé Perol, Jeanne Lefèvre, Emma Forster)
International distribution: APROPIC–Line Rousseau–Marion Gauvent
Mandorle Productions is subsidized by the Ministry of Culture (DRAC Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes) and the region Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes. François Chaignaud is an associate artist at Chaillot – Théâtre national de la Danse in Paris as well as the Maison de la danse and the Biennale de la danse de Lyon.
Co-productions: MC93 – Maison de la Culture de Seine-Saint-Denis, Festival d’Automne à Paris, Charleroi danse, centre chorégraphique de Wallonie – Bruxelles (BE), Maison de la Danse, Lyon – Pôle européen de création, Festival Next (FR / BE), Theater Rotterdam (NL), Triennale di Milano (IT), KunstFestSpiele Herrenhausen Hannover(DE), Bonlieu Scène nationale Annecy.
Support from: Espace Pasolini/Laboratoire artistique Valenciennes, La Villette, Paris – Initiatives d’Artistes, Malraux, scène nationale de Chambéry Savoie, Les Aires – Théâtre de Die et du Diois, scènes conventionnées, d’intérêt national – « Art en territoire » & the French Institute in Sweden.
Special thanks: Balakumar, Edouard Prabhu, Prune Becheau
Recommended age: 12+
Stockholms Stadsmission’s meeting place at Mariatorget is a space for community and social engagement, open to everyone.
