Last year’s performance, scheduled for the courtyard of the City Hall, was cancelled due to building work, but David-Christelle Sanvee is back with a vengeance.
The Swiss performer knows how to awaken the geniuses of a place. She knows how to flush them out and tame them. Choreographing them is her trade. Ever since she arrived in Geneva, “this city that adopted me as best it could”, Sanvee has been observing, detailing and performing the social and political relationships that transpire from the walls that accommodate her. It’s through their architecture that she assesses their capacity for integration. At the Kunsthaus in Aarau, her performance Le ich dans nicht won her the Swiss Performance Prize in 2019 for her ability to “address relevant social issues in a subtle way, such as the mechanisms of exclusion experienced in one’s own body”. Today, she has chosen the heart of Geneva’s City Hall: Cour Saint-Pierre. Its eight empty arcades, its wide staircases designed for illustrious horsemen, its coat of arms “Aime ton Pays” (Love your Country) come alive with a droll equestrian choreography that shifts the mythologies of identity. With the horse as her symbol and identity as her battle, Sanvee moves us with finesse. She confirms with humour: “It’s often said that walls have ears, and well, at Hôtel-de-Ville, they have eyes and a mouth. They won’t be silent.”

Open-air show, in all weathers.