La Politesse

SYNOPSIS

La Politesse is a solo performance between dance and theatre, written and performed by Cindy Emélie. It questions the personal, social and gendered expectations placed on her as a Black woman, and explores insolence as a potential path to emancipation.

Drawing on the expectations inherited from her upbringing in Martinique, Cindy Emélie offers a sensitive reflection on intergenerational transmission through the body, memory and speech.

A performance for all audiences, ages 8 and up.

“I want to look at the expectations we place on ourselves and those passed down through upbringing, especially as a Black woman who grew up in Martinique. I want to explore the different facets of politeness: politeness of the heart, politeness of the body, politeness of the mind. To bring to light the expectations, conscious or unconscious, handed down to little girls, to play with the confining power of these expectations, and then to push to their extreme the physical, aesthetic and emotional codes that shape the image of the well-behaved little girl. I then want to explore what insolence, understood as audacity, brings in terms of freedom of being, freedom of creation and freedom of speech. Finally, I wish to pay tribute to those women, our dear ancestors, who came through time and made it possible for me to create freely on this subject today.” - Cindy Émélie