The result of a carefully calibrated alliance between the Fondation d’entreprise Hermès and four firmly established cultural institutions – Les Subsistances in Lyon, the Théâtre National de Bretagne, the Comédie de Clermont-Ferrand, and the Théâtre de la Cité internationale in Paris — Transforme Festival sets out a clear ambition: to provoke dialogue between disciplines, to hybridise forms, and to offer a stage responsive to the issues of our time. Always with impeccable scenography, and mainstreamed storytelling that knows exactly what it’s doing.
Amid this multidisciplinary programming, I chose to focus on three performance-based works that, without loudly declaring their radicalism, place the body at the heart of their language. These are not the only works worthy of attention, but they share something rare: a commitment to presence – immediate, lived, sometimes abrasive. They don’t just talk about embodiment, they put it to work.
Because Transforme, for all its airs of a sensitive laboratory, raises a very real question: what exactly is being transformed here? Our gaze? Our narratives? Our aesthetic frameworks? Or simply our tolerance for well-produced good intentions? Behind the words, the partnerships, and the polished visuals, it remains to be seen whether we’re witnessing a genuine shift – or just its carefully choreographed mise-en-scène.
Steven Cohen – Boudoir
The performance opens with a series of video capsules. Grotesque, kitschy, often literal. At one point, we find Cohen in a taxidermy workshop in South Africa, perched on a platform, heels seemingly fused with elephant hooves.
He drifts silently, expressionless. Others are present – artisans at work – yet the camera sees only him. A ‘Whites Only’ sign lingers in the background, an unsubtle symbol, while the only visible hands belong to racialised workers, reduced to functional presences. The body is here, yes – but that’s about it.
These capsules mix music, interview fragments, singing, and visual effects reminiscent of a Dior ad gone concept-heavy. It’s slick; maybe too slick.
Then we’re taken to a Jewish cemetery in Johannesburg. Cohen wears a costume bearing the infamous Nazi inscription Arbeit macht frei (work sets you free), performing atop his mother’s grave. The image is stark, frontal. Later, he’s shown at a concentration camp in France: barbed wire, crematoriums, Cohen lying still like a taxidermied relic. His costume catches fire, and then – a door opens. The audience is invited into the boudoir.
Or rather, a colonial death chamber disguised as a cabinet of curiosities: rugs made from animal hair, the neck of a giraffe, a baboon slouched in existential despair. Not exactly feng shui.
Enter Cohen – fluorescent dress, blacklight glow – emerging like some ghostly butterfly from a hidden door. He wanders, again. Pauses. Gestures. We’re back to the capsule’s rhythm, this time in real space.
