Camille Mutel, the dense gesture
Interview by Samuel Gleyze-Esteban for L'œil d'Olivier 

 

What was your first memory of the performing arts?

​It was a children's show I saw in my final year of kindergarten. It was about a little clown in a circus troupe that decides to leave the performance. It was a show that addressed the issue of death. It came at a key moment in my life, and it allowed me to put images there where there were no words. I've kept the program of the show to this day.

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What was the trigger that made you want to pursue a career in the performing arts sector?

There have been several departures and renunciations, each renunciation opening doors to a more unique universe. In the beginning, at a very young age, there was ballet. Then the theater at sixteen. Butoh dance finally when I was twenty years old.

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What made you choose to be a dancer?

​I think I chose dance at a very young age because it allowed me to keep the threat of death and illness at bay. I was confronted with it at a very young age, and as I grew up I didn't find any other tools that allowed me to this extent to excavate the unspeakable, to lay it bare. Dance allowed me to give body to the shadow, to tame it little by little. I started dancing butoh to join those for whom the body is not a matter of control; rather for those who have no control over their own bodies.

Illness and death have long fascinated and frightened me. Bodies confronted with otherness and reality dance, despite themselves, a dance that surpasses them. This is how Tatsumi Hijikata defined dance, and this is how I practiced it: as a cry, a stupor, or a terror greater than oneself, which makes everything tremble and with which one learns to coexist. The candle scene between the poet and Domenico in Tarkovsky's Nosthalghia is a scene that has guided me for years in my relationship with art and creation. Today, there remain from these abysses a few breaches that open onto long silences. I left the place of impulse to devote myself to choreographic writing. The shadow is never far away, but it is no longer it that I exalt or summon. I circumscribe it and I open a few vents in my gestures so that it can breathe and the exchange can take place between shadow and light....

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​What was the first show you participated in, and what memory do you have of it? 

I remember a piece choreographed in 2000 by Michaël d'Auzon. The show was called Les Cendres de la Vache Rousse (The Ashes of the Red Cow). It wasn't the first show I participated in, but it was the first that allowed me to engage in deep and complex creative work. I remember nights spent working in the attic, fixing gestures. I remember making and unmaking the choreographic scores. The show only ran for two performances. But I was bitten by sleepless nights and an unfulfilled desire to create.

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​What was your favorite performance? 

I saw Erna Omarsdottir dance in Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui's Foi (Faith). I was overwhelmed. I knew that by going to see IBM 1401 a user's manual I would be swept away. And the show captivated me. I see her again alone, struggling, screaming, revolting, laughing. I see her generosity and the completeness of her presence. This piece corresponded to the 2000s and the physical exhaustion that was so celebrated at that time. It resonated with me because I was seeking to move forward through choreographic electroshocks. That's not what I'm looking for today, but this piece marked an important step in my training as a spectator.

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What have been your greatest encounters? 

It's a long list that can't be exhaustive here... Working alongside Masaki Iwana for five years, I learned about duration, the time of a gesture, and detachment. Alongside Dairik Amae, a tea master, I entered into the depth of silence and the density of gesture. In the dance of Kerem Gelebek, I learned the power of lightness. In the fan dances of Satomi, a geisha, I learned the strength of elegance and tenacity. In Marianne Chargois, I admired the sense of rebellion and the energy of struggle. And then there are the encounters through the works of Duras, Ryoko Sekiguchi, Smith... Great encounters are the kind that teach you the opposite of what you came looking for, that take you elsewhere and help you make your journey something other than a well-trodden straight line.

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How is your job essential to your well-being? 

It's what allows me to be unique. To be different. Slightly different, slightly offbeat. It allows me to break through my daily routine to breathe, escape, and, paradoxically, be able to anchor myself much more firmly.

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What inspires you? 

Alternating between a full life—others, children, travel, love—and emptiness. Inspiration comes as a synthesis during long, deep periods of silence and isolation. Without solitude, without withdrawal, without seclusion from the world, I am incapable of creating.

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What is your relationship to the stage?

It's almost spiritual. But in the simplest aspect of spirituality: the sharing of a time and a duration. An accomplished performance is the feeling that we've come close to touching something truly real together—spectators and dancers—in a fleeting, sometimes imperceptible way.

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​Where in your flesh, in your body, do you locate your desire to do your job?

For a long time, this desire was linked to the uterus. Since the birth of my daughter, this particular nerve center has changed. Today, it is located more at the level of the plexus and a point at the back of the skull connected to the first cervical vertebra. It is as if these centers become excited when the right image and gesture, that are so sought after, are at the brink of discovery.

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​Which other artists would you like to work with?

With the ghost of Raimund Hoghe. The poet Gozo Yoshimasu. The photographer Noémie Goudal. The dancer Takeshi Ueno. The artist Julius von Bismarck. The visual artist Fujiko Nakaya.

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​What crazy project would you like to participate in?

Apichatpong Weerasethakul would film a banquet of existential cuisine prepared by Lei Saito in the Tuscan countryside. Around the table, the guests would sing operatic arias and folk songs, never raising their voices above the sound of the wind. The guests would be served by the silent, almost absent dance of Yoko Ashikawa.

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July 2023