“Foutrement” is French for, ahem, the F word. That’s right. Virginie Brunelle, Montreal’s contemporary dance company, chose to bring Foutrement to Vancouver’s Dance Festival. Vancouver’s dance festival is only enhanced by the addition of Foutrement, which brings to the stage passionate longing, transfixing the audience from beginning to end. And wow, were dance connoisseurs ever impressed!
Foutrement starts off with two dancers, a man and a woman, on an empty stage, desperately and awkwardly putting on protective gear, only to have it stripped away five minutes in. Along with the protective gear are the rest of their clothes (except for underwear), highlighting romantic vulnerability through nudity.
Another woman enters the stage, and a love triangle is created. One love is characterized through strict, contorted movements. It’s a crazy love with rock-star musical notes. The other is a roller coaster of emotions, with constant happy and nightmarish endings. But the two keep coming back for more, addicted to the painful excitement.
The scene that captured my attention the most was when the two women were alone for the first time on the stage. Their synchronized, broken doll-like movements showcased an effort to escape the triangle, to get back on their own feet without crashing down. As the women struggle to find themselves alone, the man enters the stage. He strides in, carrying a large pile of at least 50 belts, and swiftly drops it on top of his ex-lover.
Perhaps it’s cliched, the belted prison-like symbolism, but the manic reaction with which his initial lover prescribes to the metaphor is breath-taking. The once innocent, swanlike dancer becomes a crazed, almost possessed manic, thrusting as many belts away from her as possible. She’s desparate to escape. But alas, even with her lover betraying her over and over again, she never escapes.
Indeed, Foutrement is a brutally eroticizing tale of destructive and addictive passion.