MAÏ(G)WENN
ET LES ORTEILS
ATYPICAL CONTEMPORARY STEPDANCERS
Maï(g)wenn et les Orteils is an organization dedicated to research, creation, production, presentation, and cultural mediation, specializing in step dancing and inclusive contemporary dance. Since 2008, it has worked with professional artists from the neurodiverse community.
The encounter between neurotypical artists (without a diagnosis) and atypical artists lies at the heart of every new creation. It is the driving force that nourishes the choreographer’s work and allows her to further explore human relationships beyond intellectual and social disability. The organization also specializes in adaptive dance education and offers cultural mediation workshops for neurodiverse individuals.
NEWS
SHOWS AVAILABLE
LES DAUPHINS ET LES LICORNES
SYNOPSIS
LES DAUPHINS ET LES LICORNES (in French)
2024 | 60 min. | 6 Dancers
Like a journey to Utopia… gone off the rails! On stage, a child, neurotypical dancers, and others from the neurodiverse community. They divide the world into two playful and ridiculously arbitrary categories: on one side the dolphins, on the other the unicorns.
What follows is a kind of fascinating ritual, an attempt to create together, collectively, a performance that is constantly disrupted by the frantic search for the other’s gaze, their approval. At times, the performers also allow themselves the luxury of being authentically themselves: embracing their flaws, their fragility, turning their skin inside out to observe its seams and the threads that stick out. These frantic back-and-forths between the Self and the Other place the dancers in a precarious balance. And we, spectators nestled in the shadows, become privileged witnesses to their beauty, their humanity, and their monstrosity.
Once again, in Les Dauphins et les Licornes, we recognize the company’s choreographic signature: contemporary dance, step dancing, uninhibited spoken word, performative theatricality—languages all necessary to the emergence of a true dramaturgy of diversity. With this new opus, choreographer Maïgwenn Desbois lets herself be guided by her performers to stage a grand punk-kitsch ball, where rainbows are sometimes splattered with blood.
This performance is offered in a relaxed and accessible format, particularly aimed at neurodiverse audiences. Cultural mediation activities, audience discussions, and high-school-level student performances are also available.
LISTEN TO SEE
RÉSUMÉ - ÉCOUTE POUR VOIR
2021 | 45 min. / perfo | 3 to 6 interprets
ÉCOUTE POUR VOIR offers a variety of solos, performed simultaneously and dispersed throughout a space. Equipped with a shared pair of headphones connected to an iPod, the dancer and spectator experience a one-on-one choreography set to a piece of music. Through the sensitivity and unique gestural language of artists living with disabilities, this new edition of ÉCOUTE POUR VOIR opens the door to uncommon relational encounters. In this intimate and close setting, the spectator—engaged by an artist with an intellectual disability—is invited into a simple yet deeply moving artistic experience, one that may profoundly shift their perspective on humanity and its potential.