C É L B E L
I N E L U T
I N E L U T
Are physical impulses a means of accessing authenticity? Is disobedience a way to achieve freedom?
Suddenly, a Sloth Crosses the Street, the second piece of the Unproductive Body trilogy, explores disobedience through four distinct acts, each offering a different perspective on the subject. This performance reflects on the consumerism of entertainment that prevails in today's society, critiquing a culture that exploits and rewards virtuosic, obedient bodies. It also pays tribute to Vaslav Nijinsky's Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun, envisioned as an embodiment of "(r)evolution" — the act of defying established obedience on an artistic level.
The concept of disobedience is applied to a range of movement studies, resulting in a piece where the performers exist in constant negotiation between disobeying their own movement impulses and fulfilling their very function as bodies in motion. Untamed and uncontrollable, they follow only one logic: not obeying, resisting, countering, and finding alternatives. Trained in disobedience and drawing inspiration from the living world, this practice becomes itself a form of resistance — one further inspired by Henry David Thoreau's writing on civil disobedience.
With a team of five artists, Céline Bellut explores disobedience both physically and contextually, from human and non-human perspectives alike, revealing other ways of living and moving.
Artistic direction, choreography and performance: Céline Bellut
Co-creation and performance: Ying Yun Chen and Jordan Gigout
Musical composition: Jacob Lorenz
Video: Maylis Sanchez
Lighting design: Laura Salerno
Costumes: Saskia Holte
Dramaturgy: Peter Haas
Production assistant: Federico Rossi
Credits pictures : Hans Diernberger
Produced by Céline Bellut
Co-produced by Tanzhaus NRW Düsseldorf and by Tanzfaktur Köln
This production is supported by : Fonds Darstellende Künste with funds from the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and Media as part of the NEUSTART KULTUR program and the NRW Ministry of Culture and Science, NRW Landesbüro Freie Darstellende Künste. This project was realized with the support of FREIRAUM, a space for conceptual collaboration and work for the arts, and with the support of the residency program Tanzatelier 0.10 in Quartier am Hafen.