Eonnagata

Eonnagata tells the strange tale of Chevalier d’Eon, the French diplomat, swordsman and spy whose cross-dressing and ambiguous sexuality was a source of 18th century intrigue. He/she provided then, and provides now, an uneasy reminder of what we are and what we feel, be we men, maids, or sexualities in between.

The work has been put together by four very different, and internationally acclaimed, artists: there’s Lepage, the choreographer Russell Maliphant, the dancer Sylvie Guillem and the fashion designer Alexander McQueen. That’s quite a team - and the result is a unique hybrid of their art forms. How would they describe it? Maliphant gives it a go: “It’s not pure dance: it doesn’t have Sylvie doing splits or amazing falls. But it’s not pure theatre, either.

Most extraordinary is the moment where the elderly Chevalier conjures up his former selves and Guillem and Maliphant, summoning their own most astonishing technical virtuosity, dance a mirror duet before seeming to physically slither, dissolve and vanish from sight. The Chevalier is left alone to die, splayed out on the autopsy table, as a single beam of light rakes cruelly over his body. It is a heart-rending scene and one of several moments that confirm there is a character in the middle of this complicated production with the power to fascinate and move. But Eonnagata still feels like a work in progress, and its character hasn’t yet come into focus.

Eonnagata is neither a dance, nor a theatre, or immersion in human psyche. It is the combination of the three. There are three of them on stage. The three of them created this unique and continually evolving performance. Its fragility conveys the refined changeability of the bodies, the states of mind and the reality. For the first time in her career Sylvie Guillem collaborated with drama and opera director Robert Lepage. Working with them was her brilliant partner Russel Maliphant whose dancing techniques always combined power and fineness. These two inspired performers dissolve in Robert Lepage’s experimental drama. The director from Quebec, the poet of the stage, the magician of imagery, he is no doubt today’s greatest man of theatre in the broadest sense of the word. Lepage is a genius and we use this word absolutely consciously (…).
This performance blends together the solemnity of a religious rite and elegant acting style.
It combines the narrative with acting and dance. And distinctive elusiveness is always present in it. The reverie. The unexpectedness. And all this blows away like a tender and sad dream.

The work has been put together by four very different, and internationally acclaimed, artists: there’s Lepage, the choreographer Russell Maliphant, the dancer Sylvie Guillem and the fashion designer Alexander McQueen. That’s quite a team - and the result is a unique hybrid of their art forms. How would they describe it? Maliphant gives it a go: ‘It’s not pure dance: it doesn’t have Sylvie doing splits or amazing falls. But it’s not pure theatre, either’.

Constantly surprising, Eonnagata is a caress rather than a knock-out blow. It is pure artistry and gives new meaning to the term moving pictures