Unplush

As a starting point, the performance takes the interviews conducted by Marion Zurbach and Géraldine Chollet with Biche, a dancer Marion knew as a child. During their meetings, Biche talks about the choices and events that have shaped her life.

Each scene is built on a testimony from Biche about her life, performed in movement by Géraldine and Marion with the aim of creating a relationship of trust and intimacy.

The performance takes a look at the relationship that the performers had with their bodies at different stages in their lives, in relation to Biche’s experience and life path. Their testimonies speak of attempts at control, injury, healing and reinvention.

Biche’s reality, her struggle for survival, her search for meaning, are the manifestation of her courage to live outside of pre-established patterns. Far from exemplary speeches and forms, the piece pays tribute to a practice of animal care.

Marion Zurbach started her training at the École Nationale Supérieure de Danse de Marseille, before moving to the École Atelier Rudra Béjart Lausanne. From 2003 to 2015 she worked, amongst others, for the Ballet National de Marseille and the Konzert Theater Bern. In 2015, Zurbach founded the Bern-based artistic association Unplush. Since its creation, Unplush has collaborated regularly with the Dampfzentrale Bern, toured in Switzerland and abroad and was awarded the June Johnson Dance Price in 2019. In 2018, Marion completed her Master of Theatre and Performance degree at Bern University of the Arts (HKB). In 2020/21 she created «Les Promises», a piece made with teenage women from the northern districts of Marseille. In 2021 she works on the new creation Biche.

Géraldine Chollet trained at the Laban Centre (London). She then danced with various companies and also worked as an actress with the Alakran and the Emilie Charriot Company, especially in «King Kong Théorie» from Virginie Despentes. Since 2006, she has been training with Ohad Naharin and the Batsheva Dance company to teach the Gaga movement language to professionals and amateurs in dance and theatre. She teaches in particular at the Manufacture (HETSR), Bern:Ballett and Cie Philippe Saire. Since 2011, Géraldine Chollet has been developing her own choreographic work.

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