The bodies of two men in contact, in the heat, strong and relaxed, listening, stretching, balancing, semi-nude, sweating, suspended. A physical journey from a simple warm up to overheating and exhaustion.

Two men precariously balanced, and obsessed with a woman's voice. To hold on in spite of… the confusion, the heat, the light, the sweat. To hold on, à deux, to the limits of desire… and perhaps beyond. To hold on, because that's where the meaning is. To hold on, even though a voice invites you elsewhere, to sensuality, abandonment, collapse.

Trapped between two walls of lights, the acrobats develop a duet using portés, hand to hand acrobatics, balances and increasingly fragile attempts to hold on, preoccupied by the commands of desire and the ordeal of the heat. They are accompanied by a female monologue, a sound poem, a declaration of love, a dream of young woman, a sexual fantasy. It is she who pushes them to hold on, she who seeks to satisfy the full extent of her desires for the body, skin, sweat and pain.

Further information

Rictus website

Updating: July 2013

In July 2013 David Bobee was named director of the Centre dramatique national de Haute-Normandie (National Dramatic Centre of Upper Normandy), previously having been a resident artist with the Théâtre National de Chaillot (Chaillot National Theatre) and guest artistic director of the Moscow Gogol Theatre. His staging of "Roméo and Juliette" in 2012, in a new translation by Pascal and Antoine Collin was created at Les Subsistances in Lyon as part of the Biennale de la Danse (Dance biennial) and performed at the Théâtre National de Chaillot in November 2012. This piece is a flamboyant counterpoint to the icy darkness of his “Hamlet”, created in 2010. Up until then, David Bobee had dealt mostly with contemporary texts, in particular those of Ronan Chéneau: "Res Persona", "Fées" (Fairies), "Cannibales", "Dedans Dehors David" (Inside, outside, David), "Petit Frère" (Little brother), "Nos enfants nous font peur quand on les croise dans la rue" (Our children scare us when we meet them in the street). His work, characterised from the start by its mixture of artistic disciplines as much as cultures, lead him to stage the 23rd end of year show for CNAC − Centre national des arts du cirque (National Centre for Circus Arts) in “This is the end”. In Moscow, he re-staged two works by the group Rictus with Russian actors (“Fées-Fairies” in 2010, “Hamlet” in 2013), and created “Métamorphosis” in 2012 on a text by Ovid. These latter two shows were performed in France the following season.

Trained in cinema and the performing arts at the University of Caen, he then joined the theatre school of the Centre dramatique national (CDN) de Normandie (National Dramatic Centre of Normandy) and worked under Eric Lacascade as assistant stage director and then as artistic collaborator on the Chekhov trilogy (“La Mouette” (The Seagull), “Les trois soeurs” (Three Sisters) and “Ivanov”), “Les sonnets”, “Platonov”, “Hedda Gabler” and also “The Barbarians”. In 2003 and 2004, he co-directed sessions of the "Laboratoire d'imaginaire social" at the CDN de Normandie (National Dramatic Centre of Normandy).

Further information : David Bobee / Rictus

Since 2001, the National Center for Dance (CND) has been making recordings of its shows and educational programming and has created resources from these filmed performances (interviews, danced conferences, meetings with artists, demonstrations, major lessons, symposia specialized, thematic arrangements, etc.).