From L’inventeur de l’Amour to Créatures with the Hors Mots company, Massimo DEAN’s work as a writer and director has always explored the idea of desire. After working together on Beckett’s Happy Days, he and actress and director Inbal YALON (Volcan/Une Histoire du Clitoris, Anatomie d’un (H) éros) are at it again as they delve into GIGOT LOVE, exploring stereotypes and behaviours associated with gender, sexualised roles and the expression of desire.
Charles is a forty-year old gigolo. His job involves satisfying the fantasies of his female clients, who pay him for his sexual services. The play is staged in a unique way, mirroring an interview or press conference, with the actor on a set and the actress in the audience, like a journalist. In the background, a screen shows images revealing his inner life, like a slow story that unfolds and peels back the layers of the main character’s life.
From the outward appearance of the ideal lover, to his own desire, stories about his experiences, and the confession that he is unable to fulfil the desires of his clients, GIGOT LOVE gradually shifts our perspectives by revealing a clear polarity. The physical and emotional violence that degrades and objectifies women in the sex trade is reversed, flipping the usual relationship of domination to portray a super hero dedicated to female pleasure. “If women controlled the sex industry, becoming the main players and clientele, what would be their most important needs? What kinds of service would they want? How would they dominate men in physical and gender terms?” These are just some of the questions that Massimo DEAN and Inbal YALON explore in their performance.
Staged in the lounges of Hôtel Mercure, KALI & CO paints a fine theatrical portrait that leaves us with lasting new perspectives on desire and fantasy.
BIOGRAPHY
The KALI & CO company was created in 2003 by Massimo DEAN and Fosco Corlianò for their De Bello Gallico project. Today it has around fifteen original productions and experimentations to its name, as it explores ways of combining different artistic languages like theatre, music and video. Contemporary writing is also at the heart of the company’s work. In 2004, Massimo DEAN wrote and directed Il crimine lo canta Pier for the Questo non è un filosofo festival in Udine, Italy, and directed Il Grande Inquisitore by Dostoyevsky in Venice. In 2006 he took on the three-part adventure of the French version of Pierre Rivière (Pier chante son crime) at the Aire Libre Theatre, and a first reading of Richard the third, car en vérité c’est la vie qui donne à la vie (co-produced by Tombées de la Nuit in 2007). These were followed by Titanic and My against Myself (2008), then Le pinocchio selon moi and L’inventeur de l’amour (2009), the long-term project on the Blosne neighbourhood in Rennes, which became Les tours parlent (2010) and Aria (2013). Massimo DEAN has also acted in, written and directed a number of projects in France, Italy and Germany.
After completing dramatic arts studies at INSAS in Brussels, the Conservatories of Liège, Leipzig and the Russian University of Theatre Arts (GITIS) in Moscow, actress and director Inbal YALON also works as a drama teacher and acting coach. She has a Master’s in languages and foreign literature, and translates literary texts and scripts. She co-wrote Sex Politex and wrote L’histoire ludique et détaillée du Clitoris, which she directed, and acted in Belgium and other countries. She has continued to explore female desire with Volcan, une histoire du clitoris and Anatomie d’un (H) éros.
DISTRIBUTION
By : Inbal Yalon et Massimo Dean
Staging : Inbal Yalon et Massimo Dean / With : Inbal Yalon et Massimo Dean / Creator of lights : Ronan Cabon / Creator of sounds : Fabrice Tison / Music : Mohsen Namjoo, Riccardo Cocciante, Maira Callas … / Inspired by : La révolution du plaisir féminin d’Élisa Brune
In collaboration with :
Compagnie LLIOLA ( Bruxelles ) / festival Games Ovaires 2016 ( Bruxelles ) / compagnie Kali & Co / Ville de Rennes / Tombées de la Nuit / T héâtre de Poche ( Bruxelles ) / Fête des duits ( Orléans )
