CCDF 25|Cuir

14/6
CUIR
45’
ARNO FERRERA & GILLES POLET
Belgium

Created by: Arno Ferrera, Mika Lafforgue & Gilles Polet
Performers: Arno Ferrera & Gilles Polet
Artistic Direction: Arno Ferrera
External Eye: Paola Rizza
Choreographic Eye: Benjamin Kahn, Gilles Polet
Sound Adviser: Amaury Vanderborght
Lighting Design: Florent Blanchon
Light and Sound Technician: Pierre-Jean Faggiani
Saddler: Jara Buschhoff
Costume Design: Jennifer Defays
Booking, production: Anaïs Longiéras
Administration: Steven Cayrasso - Les Halles de Schaerbeek
With the collaboration of Alexandre Fray, Un loup pour l’homme
Acknowledgements: Un loup pour l’homme: Lou Henry, Caroline Cardoso, Emma Lefrançois
Photographer: Valérie Frossard
Video: Romain Vennekens
Press: Estelle Laurentin
Graphic Design: Ekta
Delegated Producer: Les Halles de Schaerbeek
CUIR has been produced by the company Un loup pour l’Homme (FR)
Co-production: Le Bateau Feu, SN de Dunkerque (FR), Theater op De Markt, Dommelhof (BE), Larural, Créon (FR), Festival Perspectives, Sarrebrück (DE).
With the support: Conseil Régional Hauts-de-France, SACD / Processus Cirque, Fonds Transfabrik (Fonds franco-allemand pour le spectacle vivant). The company Un loup pour l’Homme has been supported by the Ministry of Culture of France (Ministère de la Culture / Direction régionale des affaires culturelles Hauts-de-France - aide aux compagnies conventionnées).

CUIR is a duet on the notions of traction and attraction. In a powerful body-to-body confrontation, two harnessed men play at manipulating each other’s bodies. The cautious pleasure they take in transforming each other into an instrument, an apparatus, a playground or a battlefield engages them in a struggle with mutual consent. Between traction and attraction, they do not aim for power over the other, but rather power with the other.

Arno Ferrera graduated in Physical Theatre from the Scuola Teatro Dimitri in Switzerland, after practising gymnastics for ten years and studying Baroque music for six years at the Conservatorio della Svizzera Italiana (CSI). He chose Brussels as his base and enriched his physical training with contemporary dance in the Belgian capital. He took part in the European tour of Holiday on Stage by Martin Schick and Damir Todorovic. He then participated in the creation of the Swiss company Opera Retablo’s production Vanity: I Hate This Job. Since 2018, he has been the artistic director of the Belgian company Kind Bull, alongside Amaury Vanderborght. Their work focuses on creating artistic projects within closed environments, such as psychiatric hospitals and prisons. He has developed research around instinctive movement, combined with an analysis of animal motor skills. In 2015, he joined the company Un Loup pour l’Homme, performing in the show Face Nord and later contributing to the creation of Rare Birds. In 2018, he began developing the new project Cuir. In 2023, Cuir left the company Un Loup pour l’Homme to join Les Halles de Schaerbeek in Brussels, where Arno Ferrera is an associate artist from 2023 to 2028.

Gilles Polet (1984) first trained as an actor at the Lemmensinstituut in Leuven before moving to Leeds to study at the Northern School of Contemporary Dance. He graduated from P.A.R.T.S. in Brussels in 2008. Since graduating, his work has ranged from opera — with Deborah Warner at La Monnaie in Brussels — to short films with directors Dimitri Karakatsanis, Andrew Ly, and Kevin Calero. His solo Jack-in-the-Box has been performed worldwide, at venues in Hong Kong, Tehran, Berlin, and beyond. While travelling through Iran, Gilles Polet encountered Sufism, which inspired his next solo, Simurgh, exploring the intricate links between Sufi culture in Iran and Western club culture. He collaborated for ten years with Troubleyn/Jan Fabre, including in the re-enactments This is Theatre Like It Was to Be Expected and Foreseen and The Power of Theatrical Madness, in which he played the role of the emperor. He also performed in Mount Olympus: To Glorify the Cult of Tragedy, a 24h Performance by Troubleyn/Jan Fabre. In 2020, he focused on his career as a yoga teacher and created his own outdoor yoga app, YOGING. He joined the team of CUIR in June 2021.

Organised by: Deputy Ministry of Culture (Department of Contemporary Culture) and Rialto Theatre.
Tickets: €8 (€30 for all performances)
Free entrance to students, soldiers, pensioners, PWD cardholders and dance professionals.