Mother Tongue

MOTHER TONGUE

A contemporary dance performance conceived, choreographed and performed by Pierre Geagea in collaboration with Sharif Sehnaoui and Tony Elieh.

A dancer and two musicians together reconsider the meeting of sonorous and corporal expression.

Country of production: Lebanon

Date of completion: 2014

Duration: 45 mins

Synopsis:

Mother Tongue sketches the journey of Pierre, a dancer who gradually develops the partial capacity to hear. In doing so, the worlds of language, gesture, rhythm and understanding begin to collide.

LANGUAGE, GESTURE AND

PERFORMANCE

At a young age, Pierre Geagea finds in sign language and dance two essential modes of expression. Sign language is his bridge between the spoken word and the gesture. Later, he slowly discovers sound and begins to enter rhythm and music into dialogue with words and signs. Pierre's unique relation to these elements is his mother tongue.

Fusing and interacting contemporary dance moves and gestural speech with experimental soundscapes, Mother Tongue is the passage of an individual's changing sensory interactions with his surroundings and an intimate, physical conversation with sound.

'Geagea realizes a personal creation,intimate and moving, even heartrending'

- Collette Khalaf, L'Orient le Jour, 2014

THE MEETING OF SOUND AND MOVEMENT

Musicians Sharif Sehnaoui and Tony Elieh partook in an intricate process of exchange with dancer Pierre Geagea to score the musical accompaniment to Mother Tongue.

Sharing their different experiences of hearing sound, including Pierre's capacity to split frequencies, they worked together to identify the sounds that Pierre feelsand hears best. It soon became apparent to the musicians that music is infact more important to Pierre than most other dancers because of his increased sensitivity to its pulsations, vibrations, and dynamics. Such a dialogue being thus established between the three, the end result is a performance whose choreography is as much informed by its musical score as its music is informed by dance.

SOLVING THE PUZZLE

The perimeters of the stage form Pierre's inner world. As his journey unfolds we witness his changing reactions to sound, language and so his entire experience.

A binary establishes itself between Pierre's internal and outer experience, reflected in a sceonographic design that contrasts monochrometones with colour. Yet the two worlds begin to collide, with increasingly frequent interruptions to the early monochromeorder: the multi-colour Rubikcube, the removal of Pierre's white shirt, and finally the projection of a growing moon that exceeds the perimeter of the stage.

Pierre sets to work solving the puzzle presented to him with a playful air. Hefabricates his own office, setting to work relating to his fast-changing world,before the performance takes once more an oneiric turn towards its close.'Pierre Geagea hit the stage like a one-man tornado.'

- NelidaNassar, Art and Culture Today, 2014

CONCEPT, CHOREOGRAPHY AND DANCE

Pierre Geagea began classical ballet and jazz ballet studies at the age of 12. Later turning his talentsto contemporary dance, he began to develop his own distinct means of expression. Geagea has participated in numerous contemporary dance shows and workshops around the globe. His current work focuses on integrating contemporary dance with sign language, bridging the gap between the spoken word and the gesture.

LIVE MUSIC: Electric and bass guitar Sharif Sehnaoui and Tony Elieh are two of the major figures on the Lebanese experimental music scene that revolves around the Irtijal International Festival.

Sehnaoui's background is in jazz and improve music,whilst Elieh is the co-founder of the Lebanese post-punk band Scrambled Eggs. They have collaborated on several projects, notably their Percussion Duo which explores percussion techniques on strings.