Etude 6 On Crowd

Crowd, one of the most explosive shows by Gisèle Vienne, is the representation of a ritual: that of the party, a collective practice pertaining to all eras and societies. In the hallucinatory simultaneity of the lights, shadows, sounds and moving bodies of a rave party, the artist outlines a series of fascinating and deeply human portraits, focusing on the emotional experience—rather than the actual experience—of time. Gisèle Vienne returns to FOG with Etude 6, a performance that acts as a sort of negative of Crowd, sharing the experience of two characters marked by a lack and a vital need for the crowd. All of Gisèle Vienne’s works are political, not only through their artistic and philosophical stakes but also through formal research, questioning culturally constructed perceptions and the possible shifts in those perceptions. This work offers a direct and visceral response to immediate and profound pain—the kind of pain experienced by bodies constrained and restricted by political systems of domination, in which something that deeply concerns us emerges.