Vanves Archives - Dancephere

The Enfant Terrible of Contemporary Folk Dance

Universally hailed as the enfant terrible of contemporary folk dance, Mr Chevalier is the Ballet National Folklorique du Luxembourg’s flamboyant new artistic director – and together with his co-director Simone Mousset he will come to you for the first time with an exclusive solo tour! Renowned in dance industry for his expertise, bold artistic vision, and magnetic stage presence, Mr Chevalier will tour the world and pay tribute to all the venues that have contributed to the success of the Ballet National Folklorique du Luxembourg in the past.

The Great Chevalier Tour coincides with the 50 year anniversary of the company’s most famous ballet, Josiane, the Country Girl, and on his various appearances, Mr Chevalier will perform among others the iconic Pigeon Dance, an emblematic classic from Josiane, the Country Girl. An unsurpassed expert in the field, Mr Chevalier will respond to the particular histories that link each venue with the Ballet National Folklorique du Luxembourg’s past, and audiences can expect to discover his unique blend of charisma and virtuosity as they are invited into these shared histories and the Ballet National Folklorique du Luxembourg’s rich cultural heritage.

November 16th – 17th, 2024 Bari International Gender festival, Bari
November 21st – 23rd, 2024 Sophiensæle, Berlin
December 6th – 7th, 2024 Kampnagel, Hamburg
March 22nd, 2025 Théâtre de Vanves, Vanves
March 24th, 2025 Festival Le Grand Bain, Roubaix
March 27th, 2025 STUK, Leuven
April 1st – 3rd, 2025 Bora Bora, Aarhus
April 8th – 9th, 2025 Dansehallerne, Copenhagen
May 20th – 22nd, 2025 Tramway/Buzzcut Glasgow
May 28th – 31st, 2025 FTA, Montreal

75 minutes

A Captivating Solo

There are hints of dancehall dutty wine whirls, or sexy pelvis swaying. The movements are always ambivalent: they range between vulnerable, violent and ecstatic, yet become mechanical and ‘empty’ through numerous repetitions.
Jelena Mihelčić

Batty Bwoy is a solo performance in collaboration with Karoline Bakken Lund, Veronica Bruce, Jassem Hindi and Ring van Mobius.

Through a reappropriation of the Jamaican term “ Batty Bwoy” (litteraly, butt boy), slang for a queer person, the work twists and turns myths to invoke demonic sensitivities and charming cruelties, unfolding vulnerable possibilities in an interplay of consciousness and naivety. The horror and joy of Batty Bwoy, inherent to queer blackness, is unmasked.

Scrutinizing the absurdity of a queer monstrosity, Batty Bwoy articulates the porosity of bodies and languages, their mouths swallowing and regurgitating the corporal fictions projected onto their skins.

Batty Bwoy attacks and embraces sedimented narratives around the fear of the queer body as a perverse and deviant figure. The expression “Batty Bwoy” is used to evoke an ambivalent being that exists in the threshold of the precarious body, liberated power, joy and batty energy!

The work has found inspiration in mythologies, disgusting stereotypes, feelings and fantasies of the queer body and identities, homophobic dancehall lyrics, 70s Giallo films from Italy, resilient “gully queens” and queer voices in Norway and Jamaica that have visited and taken part of the process.

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The Enfant Terrible of Contemporary Folk Dance

A Captivating Solo