The company La Brèche - Aurélie Gandit is in residence from September to November, conducting research on spiritual feminist practices. This will give rise to a stage performance in 2018 entitled Perchée dans les arbres.

Collectively written by:
Aurélie Gandit – conception and dance
Sarah Grandjean – dance
Magali Mougel – text
To be determined – sound
To be determined – general management and lighting
To be determined – costumes

For a spiritual feminist practice

Either materialistic feminism and its associated social practices.
Or mystical fervour and its associated social practices.
Is it possible to reconcile these two worlds?
Perched in the Trees investigates a potential spiritual feminist practice.

Can one attempt this giant leap, bridging the spiritual practices of the great mystics, those linked to the wild, sacred feminine, and a politically engaged, materialistic feminism? Could it be that today the study and practice of multiple forms of spiritual fervour are becoming a tool for the liberation and emancipation of women (and of men by extension)? All of this outside of religious dogmas, and underpinned by a certain salutary “unbelief”? Can one attempt to link the spiritual and the material in a liberating fervour? This investigation, which began in 2016, will continue until 2018 in the form of periods of immersion at the heart of the esoteric and spiritual practices of women who are witches, mystics, historians or healers. The creative team (myself, an author and a dancer) are heading off in search of personal accounts as well as practical, physical and spiritual exercises, meeting women who are working on this question, in order to participate in initiatory rituals revolving around the figures of the sacred feminine and the wild feminine, as well as the great mystics. This exploration connects practical and theoretical moments that lead us to extraordinary corporeal and spiritual states, so that instants of inner experience emerge, in which moderation and immoderation mix, in which intense presence and altered consciousness open a door to another space-time: a shaman, a Benedictine nun, a philosopher, a yogini, an osteopath, a tantrika… These moments experienced with them will provide fertile ground for writing the texts commissioned from Magali Mougel and for writing the choreographic score that I will create with and for the dancer. The aim of the project is to turn this impalpable material of unsettling experiences into worlds and bodies, to share a possible emancipation tool for all women… and all men. It is about creating a spoken and danced form in order to free ourselves from human conditions that are sometimes burdensome and desperate, but still joyful now and then.

Aurélie Gandit

Illustration: Sophie Lécuyer

Production Compagnie La Brèche – Aurélie Gandit

Co-producers and partners Arsenal – Metz en Scènes | CCN – Ballet de Lorraine – the “Accueil Studio” program 2017/2018 | 49 Nord 6 Est — Frac Lorraine | ICI — centre chorégraphique national Montpellier – Occitanie / Pyrénées-Méditerranée / directed by Christian Rizzo, La Maison CDCN Uzès Gard Occitanie and Scènes croisées de Lozère | CAC – la synagogue de Delme / Lindre-Basse residency-studio within the Lorraine Regional Natural Park | The Centre Pompidou Metz (in progress) | Le vent des forêts – centre d’art contemporain en milieu rural (in progress)

With financial support from the Conseil Régional Grand Est in the form of structuring assistance 2015-2017 | from the Drac Grand Est in the form of project assistance 2017 | from the City of Nancy.

The artist residency programme is organised by the CAC - la synagogue de Delme in collaboration with the Lorraine Regional Natural Park and the Commune of Lindre-Basse.