She and the Others

She and the other(s) features performer Chi Long in an autofiction that intertwines real-life, fanciful, or borrowed stories. This solo, created by choreographer Élodie Lombardo in close collaboration with the performer, examines the conscious and unconscious mechanisms of identity construction and transmission, invisible memories, our composite identities, and the relationships we have with physical or imaginary territories. A combination of theatre and dance, this performance uses transformations, flirts with ambivalence, and intentionally blurs the lines by means of overlapping eras and characters. In this space of apparition and destitution, the generational legacy merges with the art of camouflage, and the body bearing the traumas of the past becomes a timeless and shifting territory, sometimes magnified, sometimes bruised. Despite the intensity of the subject, the piece, like Chi herself, is fresh, surprising, and disconcerting. She and the other(s) focusses on the small and the personal, to better question Québec identity in the face of migration issues. It invites us to both reconsider each being in their singular and universal dimension and to redefine ourselves as a society through the prism of our individual stories and our collective traumas.