SUBUTEX[S]

 …is a choreographic work inspired by the radical, uncompromising literary universe of Virginie Despentes.
At its core stands her seminal trilogy Vernon Subutex, which serves as a prism through which the derailment of a life is explored: the story of a man who was once at the centre of cultural life — and who now, rootless and cast out, is pushed to the margins of a digitised, accelerated, and profoundly unjust world.

Vernon embodies an emblematic figure of the “losers” of our time — a generation raised without the internet, in a world that was still tactile, slow, rough — a world that no longer exists. Now, he wanders through a new era: hyperconnected, boundless, and increasingly hostile to anything that cannot keep up. Yet Vernon does not seek to return to the past. His journey is a desperate act of reinvention:
How to continue living when all the codes have changed, when nothing remains — no place, no role, no voice?

Choreographic Intentions

At the heart of the piece are bodies in resistance, identities in transformation, fluid figures who — at all costs — try to assert some form of presence in the world.
The physical language oscillates between rawness and fragility, traversing states of collapse, rage, loneliness — but also of collective ecstasy. A dense, tension-charged corporeality gives voice to those long silenced — those drifting in the interstices of the system.

The choreographic work is rooted in an urban and radical aesthetic, at the intersection of contemporary dance, performative theatre and live music.
Its narrative structure draws inspiration from Despentes’ polyphonic writing style — shifting between inner monologue, flashes of poetry, and trance-like sequences.

Created and performed by:
Julie Anne Stanzak, Scott Jennings, Pawel Malicki, Gesa Piper and Nathalie Larquet