L du Déluge at La Chapelle
until Tuesday December 6

The epic drama of our tensions and the confrontations of our inner multitude

By Jacqueline van de Geer

November 29, 2022

I really enjoyed the performance of L du Déluge, presented at La Chapelle, an epic and wild theatrical adventure, full of life, dance, songs and a powerful story carried by twelve performers on stage that resonated with me.

The drama is described as follows: “We are invited here to an epic against engulfment, an epic piece where bodies connect, transform and multiply, anchoring themselves in ancient cosmogonies, ancestors of our great founding myths, to draw parallels between an intimate and collective reconstruction.”

After Le temps des fruits, this is the second fruitful collaboration between Marilyn Daoust and Gabriel Léger-Savard.

Here we witness the spectacle of our tensions and the confrontations of our inner multitude; as much in an autopsy of our dislocated depths as in a supernatural deployment and altered by the elixir of the gods.

L du Déluge is the second collaboration between Marilyn Daoust and Gabriel Léger-Savard, a powerful collective experience, mixing colours, madness, techno music, strong lights and extravagant costumes, which carries us away in well-organized and meaningful chaos. A love torn away, a crisis, the ordeal of monsters and the rhythms of an uprising. There will be only a chorus and a woman. One for her, against her, in her. In fact, L du Déluge reveals a reality, ours. This creation questions us about our way of life.

Are we acting too fast? What is the point of living when the planet is about to be destroyed? How can we put an end to this modern tragedy? Could the answer be the almighty power of love? Together, author, co-director and producer Gabriel Léger-Savard and Marilyn Daoust, co-director, choreographer and producer, articulate a powerful collective experience, a charge that only the living arts can provoke. As much by the form as by the content, this performance seeks to apprehend the multiple tragedies of our time.

Prologue

Twelve artists, chatting and laughing among themselves, come to the stage, all dressed in orange costumes. One of them, a mermaid, welcomes the audience by advising us to put our phones on hold. Two elderly women, some kind of goddesses, hand out little papers inviting us to write down the names of people we love but who are no longer here with us.

After this cryptic prologue, the show begins with the story of a love torn away, in which the heroine must face the challenge of resisting the fiends in her path. The performance consists of a chorus, the heroine Ariadne and a duo of old goddesses, who watch over the stage. Ariadne having been separated from her lover, they try to keep in touch by writing letters, but they grow further and further apart. In the course of this painful epic, Ariane meets characters who sometimes turn out to be her enemies.

GABRIEL LÉGER-SAVARD

A history and politics buff, sensitive, a good listener and funky, Gabriel Léger Savard has accumulated multiple theatrical experiences – bodywork, choir, objects, shadows, writing, directing, radio, podcast, television, advertising and street theatre – while working as a performer for the past ten years.

Creation having always been part of his practice, the artist values everything that touches our guts and brings us together. Since 2016 he has been actively supporting the Inuit of Nunavik in the development of Aaqsiiq Theatre, a new institution that promotes the rich Inuit culture and language. Between 2016 and 2021, he co-directed Comptoir public, a site-specific creation project. He also sits on a number of Boards of Directors in the Quebec arts community.

MARILYN DAOUST

Marilyn Daoust is a performer and creator in dance, theatre and everything in between. A magnetic, spirited and committed performer, she began a promising career, performing in Canada and internationally since 2011. With creator and performer Gabriel Léger-Savard, she created Le temps des fruits, a work first presented in a webcast at Tangente. This interdisciplinary creation earned them the Prix Culture de LOJIQ in 2019, and the National Selection of RIDEAU in 2022.

Marilyn is animated by a balance between the unspeakable charge of the bodies and the frank connections with the public, made possible by words. She is currently working on the installation piece Material Relations with Danish artist Anna Stamp Møller. She also has the privilege of acting as a choreographer on Je t’écris au milieu d’un bel orage, directed by Maxime Carbonneau, which will be presented at the TNM in January and February 2023.

L du Déluge

Leila Donabelle Kaze
Rasili Botz
Claudia Chan Tak
Laura Côté-Bilodeau
Sarah Desjeunes Rico
Simon Fournier
Charbel Hachem
Karina Iraola
Marie-Pier Labrecque
Janie Lapierre
Mireille Métellus
Gabrielle Poulin

CREDITS

Author, co-director and producer
Gabriel Léger-Savard

Co-director, choreographer and producer
Marilyn Daoust

Choreography, in collaboration with the performers
Marilyn Daoust

Assistant director
Ariane Brière

Lighting design
Joëlle LeBlanc

Sound design
Joël Lavoie

A cappella choir composition
Showan Tavakol

Costume and prop design
Audrée Juteau Lewka

Scenography
Nadine Jaafar

Production Manager
Pier-Luc Legault

Technical director
Guillaume Lafontaine-Moisan

Make-up
Suzanne Trépanier

L du Déluge is presented at La Chapelle until December 6, 2022.

Images: David Wong

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