In a single move­ment, Ivori­an cho­reo­graph­er Nadia Beu­gré both offers up and con­ceals from view the naked bod­ies of five dan­cers. A dar­ing and rad­ic­al play on per­cep­tion and representation.

Who is this rare man, to whom Nadia Beu­gré ded­ic­ates the set­ting of a piece which premiered in 2020 at Mont­pel­li­er Danse? He eludes cat­egor­ies and asserts the sin­gu­lar­ity, mys­ter­ies and ambi­gu­ities of each indi­vidu­al. He sketches out an answer to the ques­tion: what defines and dis­tin­guishes the male body? On stage, five per­formers play with their nud­ity: almost always from the back, they deploy a vocab­u­lary linked to the sup­ple­ness of the pel­vis and sway­ing hips, derived from the research Nadia Beu­gré has been car­ry­ing out for sev­er­al years on cer­tain urb­an dances, not­ably in Brazil. The cho­reo­graph­er leaves them free to embrace the unex­pec­ted, to dance all the dances, some­times togeth­er, some­times left to their own devices. With gen­tle­ness and bold­ness, she pur­sues her research into iden­tity and gender, but not only: L’homme rare also raises ques­tions about the vul­ner­ab­il­ity of naked bod­ies, pub­lic expect­a­tions and the West­ern view of black bod­ies that have been com­mod­i­fied for cen­tur­ies. By show­ing them from the back, she hides them from view, play­ing with the tempta­tion of voyeur­ism in favor of the waver­ing of the obvi­ous, the gentle trem­bling of ques­tion­ing and interrogation.