La Morgue | Don Lifar / Un duelo en gris

Wednesday 1 July de From 8 pm
Dance – theatre 40′
Don Lifar / A duelo in gray is an exercise in style, politics and historical absurdity.
On 30 March 1958, at the age of 53, choreographer Serge Lifar confronted 73-year-old businessman George de Cuevas in a duel in Blaru, France. The complaint was the result of an “artistic disagreement” over Lifar’s blank Suite ballet. The duels were illegal in France since the 17th century, so the time and place had not been publicly announced. However, the duel took place in front of 30 journalists and ended in the seventh minute after Cuevas wounded Lifar’s forearm. It was said that after the duel both men cried and embraced each other. Cuevas stated: “I pierced my son. I killed the god of dance.”

Through the repetition and re-scenification of the duel, a historical striptease of the figure of the choreographer and his mythological qualities is carried out to question how institutional discourse is constructed. The attentive investigation of humanity’s great deeds and events reveals a hidden sense of ridicule. Based on the suspicion that some of the serious, important and main historical events chosen are both absurd and even fun, the work is a recreation and reappropriation of the great narrative structures to suggest that truth appears through multiplicity and comedy.