L’Exile des Manatées
Productionperiod: 2019 – 2020
With the kind support of the Jackstädt Foundation, the Kalkwerke Oetelshofen Foundation, WSW, RIEDEL Communications and Kulturbüro Wuppertal –
a co-production with the Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch as part of UNDERGROUND VII
The Exile of the Manatees
A choreographic and visual project on memory, estrangement, and the resonances of the past
In The Exile of the Manatees, memories do not simply surface—they plunge into the present, pierce through it, and settle within. A timeless chamber of resonance emerges, where the performer’s body, the architecture of the space, and the fleeting materiality of video projection weave into one another. In this suspended space, time layers upon itself. Every gesture, every image, every silence seems to relive history—or perhaps, to reinvent it altogether.
This sensuous and performative experience is anchored in an archetypal place: an old house—both familiar and mythical. The protagonist returns to it, or perhaps leaves it forever. This ambiguity creates a liminal state, suspended between arrival and departure, between presence and disappearance.
In this house, the walls, the cracks, and the in-between spaces carry the memory of what once was. They enter into a silent dialogue with the performer’s body—a body that itself bears traces, wounds, and ghosts. From this quiet exchange, a third dimension arises: that of a timeless past, of an inner exile that everyone recognises—yet no one can name.
A living, shared memory
This project explores the constant interplay—both conscious and unconscious—between what is ours and what is foreign to us, between the intimate and the enigmatic. The strange is never purely external: it works within us, takes the measure of our own histories, lays bare our inner lives. That is where its power lies.
This internal resonance may be biographical—but it may also belong to a collective body: to a society, to its historical memory, to a place steeped in forgotten stories, or to an artistic ensemble marked by a shared journey. The Exile of the Manatees does not seek to represent this memory, but rather to make it emerge—to render it palpable, porous, fragile, and insistent.
Why Manatees?
The title refers to these gentle marine creatures—often called “sea cows”—that seem to drift between two worlds. Their exile is at once ecological, mythological, and imaginary. Like them, we are traversed by currents of memory and displacement. Within us lies a sea of stories—slow, deep, silent—yet wholly present.
CHOREOGRAPHY & DANCE
Julie-Anne Stanzak
CONCEPT & DESIGN & CHOREOGRAPHY | Nathalie Larquet
PREMIERE | February 2020II
PIANO | Johann Kirschniok
MUSIC | Johann Sebastian Bach; Alessandro Cortini; Ben Frost; Emptyset
VIDEO | Nathalie Larquet
COSTUME DESIGN | Petra Leidner
PRODUCTION MANAGEMENT |
Stephanie Roos
IMPRESSIONS
Sponsors & Supporters
With the kind support of the Jackstädt Foundation, the Kalkwerke Oetelshofen Foundation, WSW, RIEDEL Communications and Kulturbüro Wuppertal – a co-production with the Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch
