From the original Festival website:

In Blessure, the nude artist is laid on a bed of white feathers; an arrow pierces his flank. For four hours, Yann Marussich executes just one movement and sets out on a long voyage between the borders of stillness and movement. In an intense concentration, an extreme slowness, a soft and imperceptible movement, Yann loses himself between holding back and letting go. With Blessure, he opens spaces and gives time to the spectator to take a journey into the depths of their being.

‘What I am looking for now is precisely what we don’t see walking down the street. In other words immobility. The only stillness that we could see is in the dead but most often they are hidden from us. Death is hidden. As Léo Ferré said : stillness disturbs our century.” Y.M.

Brisures is the continuation of this work on stillness, because stillness is the source of all movement. Here, the challenge is the research of minimal movement, the more organic, the more natural possible through extreme slowness and improvisation … The aim is to trace a path not determined in advance. No premeditation, no choreography but rather a state of choreography. Here, the body precedes the mind. Nobody knows where the slow movement is going; not the performer nor the audience.

This journey into the infinitesimal, means also to open up to the viewer a special time-space. The present time. Forgetting the time. The viewer becomes the actor of a common present. Part of a common experience. More than a performance, its an experience sharing.

Since 1989 Yan Marussich has created and performed a score of performances and choreographies worldwide. From 1993 to 2000 he was director of the Théâtre de l’Usine (Geneva), where he programmed contemporary dance and more specifically, new forms of expression. He also founded the ADC-Studio (Maison des Arts du Grütli, Geneva) in 1993 and was responsible for its artistic programming from 1993 to 1998.

In 2001, he choreographed Bleu Provisoire, his first completely immobile piece. Since then he has been developing his work in introspection and the control of immobility whilst exposing his body to diverse aggressions and challenges e.g Traversée (2004), Bleu Remix (2007), Ex-pression (2009), and Bain Brisé (2010). In 2008 he won the Ars Electronica prize for Hybrid Art. 

Since taking part in the NRLA in 2010, Yann was an associate artist at the Théâtre du Grütli in Geneva for the 2010/11 season. In November 2017, he presented 12 minutes et 34 secondes pour battre la brèche at the Théâtre du Galpon in Geneva. This performance has marked the beginning of his cycle of work around concrete, which also includes Le Festin du béton (presented in December 2017 at La Gravière, Geneva), El Cubo (created in 2019 as part of a residency in Montevideo, Uruguay) and Le toucher (presented in 2020 at le Grütli, Geneva). During these performances the artist is literally cast in concrete. At the same time, Yann Marussich is also developing L’Homme-Béton, which is a transversal project: performances, video performances, writing and drawings.

Yann Marussich is supported by the Department of Culture and the Fund for Contemporary Art (FMAC) of the City of Geneva, and Pro Helvetia and the Loterie Romande.

Yann had presented work twice before at the NRLA, with Autoportrait dans une fourmilière (in 2004) and Bleu Remix (in 2008). 

yannmarussich.ch