tiotià:ke / mooniyang / montreal
dance
Vâtchik Danse : Nasim Lootij + Kiasa Nazeran
L’Inconsistance
April 17 — 20, 2024
7:30pm
55 minutes
CREDITS
Collective
— Vâtchik Danse
Concept
— Kiasa Nazeran + Nasim Lootij
Choreography and Dramaturgy
— Nasim Lootij + Kiasa Nazeran
with the assistance of Sophie Michaud + Michel f. Côté
Performers
— Kiasa Nazeran + Nasim Lootij
Artistic Advisor
— Sophie Michaud
Sound Design
— Michel F. Côté
Lighting Design and Technical Direction
— Benoit Larivière
Costume Design
— Amélie Charbonneau
Costume Production
— Atelier-M-Costume
Outside Eye During The First Phase of the Process
— José Navas + Kathy Casey
Video
— Alejandro Jiménez
Partners and creative residencies
Canada Council for the Arts
Conseil des arts de Montréal
MAI (Montréal, arts interculturels)
José Navas/Compagnie Flak
Montréal Danse
Danse-Cité
Maison de la culture du Plateau Mont Royal
Maison de la culture de Rosemont-La Petite-Patrie
Circuit-est centre chorégraphique
LA SERRE – arts vivants – Festival Offta
Centre de Création O Vertigo – CCOV
Vue sur la Relève – Studio Bizz
Biennale Parcours Danse
Biennale Cinars
ABOUT VÂTCHIK DANSE
Founded in 2016 by Nasim Lootij (choreographer/performer) and Kiasa Nazeran (dramaturge), two Iranian artists, Vâtchik Danse is a contemporary dance collective based in Montreal.
Outraged by the current Iranian regime’s bans on all forms of art, Nasim left Iran in 2006 to settle in France. In Paris, she studied dance at the Université Paris 8, the RIDC and the CNSMDP, collaborated with French choreographers and created Lalaï (2012) and Bouyé Jouyé Mouliân (2015).
As political conditions in Iran hardened, Kiasa was forced to give up his career as an actor and playwright in Iran and move to France in 2009.
In Paris, he deepened his theoretical-practical knowledge of theatrical art by attending the Jacques Lecoq school, the Académie Européenne du Théâtre Corporel, the Université Sorbonne Nouvelle and the Université Bourgogne-Franche-Comté, where he defended his doctoral thesis in October 2020.
The two artists began working together in Paris in 2010. Since 2016, they have been living and working in Montreal.
‣ Their sources of inspiration: the art and socio-political history of their country of origin (Iran), current political issues, early twentieth-century modern movements, including German Expressionism. Their choreographic creations include: Moi-Me-Man (2017), La Chute (2019), L’Inconsistance (2024).
— Nasim Lootij is a recipient of the Alliance program at the MAI.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Our heartfelt thanks go to the MAI team, Camille, Nicole, Thiago, Marie, Jaëlle, Marguerite, Camille, Philip and David, for having supported and accompanied us with great patience, understanding and generosity during the four years it took to create this piece.
Our heartfelt thanks go to all our partners and collaborators who have supported us with great generosity, availability and understanding during the four years of creating this piece. Special thanks go to our artistic advisor, Sophie Michaud, with whom we have had the great privilege of collaborating for several years, and from whom we have learned a great deal; our sound designer, Michel F. Côté, who has shared his great expertise and artistic knowledge with us; our lighting designer, Benoit Larivière, our longest-standing collaborator; our costume designer, Amélie Charbonneau, our newest collaborator;
and
our great and longest-standing partners José Navas, Compagnie Flak and Adrien Bussy, for their generous support in so many ways from our first creation seven years ago to the present day.
We would also like to thank each and every one of these individuals who have so generously helped us at different moments in the process of creating this project: Sophie Corriveau, Ellen Furey, Dena Davida, Roger Sinha, Parisa Rajabiyan, Arezoo Farahani, Michael Toppings, Nayla Naoufal, Evelyne Arsenault, Janie Boucher, Youssef Shoufan, Francine Gagné, Claudel Doucet, Hoor Malas, Morteza Tabatabai, Elahé Moonesi, Mélanie Charbonneau, Pantéa Pezeshkan.
CONTENT WARNING
+ Smoke
+ A few minutes of the soundtrack feature violent words from Hitler (in German) and Stalin (in Russian).
L’Inconsistance is a dance duet by Nasim Lootij and Kiasa Nazeran from the Vâtchik Danse collective that delves into the inner workings of the human mind. The work explores how humanity prefers to submit to empty rhetoric and content itself with passive solidarity towards countries affected by serious political conflicts. It presents an image of loopholes that, once opened in our minds, prevent us from recovering our integrity and consistency.
“Where does this tendency to subject ourselves to empty rhetoric come from?”
In attempting to answer this question which opens the piece, Lootij and Nazeran draw on their fascination with German Expressionism, an aesthetic which powerfully evokes the nightmare they both experienced in their native Iran.
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Nasim and Kiasa try to find out if art, and dance in particular, have sufficient force to push back against oppression and injustice. Here in the relative calm and security of Canada, where Lootij and Nazeran have made their home, that question might seem naïve. But the recent waves of viral dance protests coming out of Iran – where dance is strictly forbidden – offer a dangerous and exhilarating retort that informs and inspires the piece
The bravery of these protests, as well as the deadly forces of reaction aligned against them, have left Lootij and Nazeran with a feeling of alienation, given the relatively peaceful lives they live here in Montreal.
Yet this feeling of alienation feeds indirectly into the performance, because it supports their deep conviction that artists must act and speak out against these types of oppressive powers, not just in Iran, but in the world as a whole.
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Four years in the making, L’Inconsistance arrives at a grave moment in geopolitical history in which inconsistency is a luxury we can ill-afford. It is an impassioned cry for freedom and an urgent warning against clinging to habits of the mind that have proven ineffectual in resisting hostile forces.
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+ Friday April 19th
Talkback with the artists hosted by Marco Pronovost.
Post-show discussion translated in LSQ and ASL.
LSQ and ASL interpreters will also be present before and after the show.
+ Saturday April 20th
We warmly invite the audience to join the artistic team for a little celebration with Iranian music and appetizers after the last performance on April 20!