GENESIS OF THE PROJECT

It was as part of the International Body Music Festival (IBMF) in Terni (near Rome) in 2015 and then in Paris in 2016 that Quelen Lamouroux and Rémi Leclerc performed for the first time as a duo. They present La Rencontre, a short 5-minute piece of theatrical body music featuring the meeting of a man and a woman. They use at this time a language essentially based on body percussion, within which they develop the theatricality in each sound and in each gesture. A light and sensitive form emanates from it and this language becomes common. This short form will extend to 40 minutes in 2018, in Ghana, as part of the same festival (IBMF).

This (re)creation allows the two partners to extend their research in order to establish a denser vocabulary to create a glossary of expression of feelings, emotions, intentions through body percussion. This is how oneirism and surrealism gradually begin to appear in a raw, organic and daily treatment of couple relationship scenes.

The raw form that results is at that time very warmly welcomed and confirms the duo in their desire to create a real show for all audiences. In 2019, they decided to surround themselves with Simon Filippi for the staging and began several research sessions, thus putting theatricality and the expression of emotions in the foreground and dramaturgy at the heart of the work. The Encounter then becomes The Hedgehog’s Dilemma.

ANALOGY

The Hedgehog’s Dilemma is a physical and musical theater duo for all audiences, transposing on stage the metaphor of the “hedgehog’s dilemma” widely used in psychology to evoke the contradictions of human relationships. The hedgehog’s dilemma or more rarely the porcupine’s dilemma is an analogy about human intimacy. He describes a situation in which a group of hedgehogs seek to come together in order to share their warmth in cold weather. However, they must stay away from each other as they would hurt each other with their thorns. Although they all share the intention of getting closer, it can’t happen, for reasons they can’t avoid.

Both Arthur Schopenhauer and Sigmund Freud used this analogy to describe their reflections on the state of an individual in his relationship to others. The hedgehog’s dilemma suggests that, despite goodwill, intimacy cannot exist without significant repercussions. The result is suspicious behavior and disruptive relationships.

POETICS OF RELATIONSHIP

The Hedgehog’s Dilemma highlights the importance of looking at oneself and the desire for healing in order to be able to build together. The friction between these two beings provokes the revelation of their own demons and traumas. Within this tandem, everyone can consider, tame and heal their own wounded parts in order to better accept, understand, flourish and create.

The mirror they represent for each other is sometimes reassuring, sometimes upsetting, touching, infuriating, always moving and wildly alive. They are two bodies that move without respite, incisive or fluid, driven by the desire to understand each other, to get along, to create together.

From there, from illusions to disillusions, the couple is revealed before our eyes in all its complexity and beauty: seduction, balance of power, aggressiveness, joy, sweetness and daily vices. Like a film without words, these two architects of the intimate unfold their story on a musical thread. The piano, the violin, the voice, the body percussions, the dance are their ingredients revolving around a more essential language which is that of the music of the bodies. A funny universe tinged with humor reminiscent of Chaplin and the flashes of Cartoons, inventing from scratch a singular gesture, both intimate and universal!

CANVAS SOUNDS COLLABORATION – HUMANOPHONES

The collaboration between La Cie des Humanophones and the Cie Sons de Toile is the logical continuation of a long-standing artistic friendship between Rémi Leclerc and Simon Filippi. Both project leaders within one of the two companies, they are also acting partners as physical musicians and actors within each of them: shows Corpus (Les Humanophones) and Zou! (Canvas Sounds).

Since 2011, these two shows have been touring in France as well as internationally and are developing in common and also very different networks. Thus, Rémi Leclerc and Simon Filippi continue to experience together sometimes the street, sometimes the room, in networks of arts of gesture, physical and visual theater, or in networks of amplified music, acapella vocal festivals…

Beyond certain artistic affinities, the Le Dilemme du hérisson project is an invitation for them to draw the thread of this collaboration by pooling the skills and resources of each of the companies in terms of production, network sharing, and development of project.