Émilie Pitoiset: Maniac

Émilie Pitoiset is an artist and a choreographer, she analyses pop culture episodes stemming from the middle ages to nowadays, trying to understand the urgency that exists in times of social, economic and political crises, for our society to produce new forms of existence through music and dance. She also delves into the impact of music and club culture, when the bodies meet and shapes start shifting, working across mediums, from dance and music performances to video and installations.

The instructions accelerate according to the rhythms: Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now), Rhythm Is A Dancer, Get Up (Before The Night Is Over)... The marathon has begun! Just as if it was a race against slumber, how would you ward off the spell?

Maniac is an exhibition inspired by a theme that has fascinated Émilie for a long time: the violence engendered by dance marathons. Those marathons took place in the U.S. during the Great Depression and are linked in the artist’s practice to the 1980s and the Cold Wave, a period which also witnessed the discovery of HIV and the ascent to power of conservative governments in the U.S. and in the United-Kingdom. Those events fostered a toughening of social and intimate relationships, paving the way for our contemporary neoliberal era.